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FIFTY ARGUMENTS 



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IN FAVOR OF 



SUSTAINING AND ENFORCING 



THE MASSACHUSETTS 

ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 




Effects of a RepeaL 



By REV. RUFUS W. CLARK. 



BOSTON : 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT & CO. 

CLEVELAND, OHIO: 
JEWETT, PROCTOR, & "WORTHINGTON. 

1853. 



. N\ *- (Li, 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 

John P. Jbwett and Company, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



STEREOTYPED AT THE 
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



It is my purpose, in this little manual, to present, in a direct and 
concise form, the prominent arguments in favor of the Massachu- 
setts Anti-Liquor Law. To enlarge upon and elaborate each specifi- 
cation, or to record the reflections, which the facts presented obviously 
suggest, would tend to defeat my object, which is, to reach, and if 
possible influence, the various classes in society. For there is not 
a moral or political question within the range of legislative author- 
ity, in which the rich and the poor, and those of every age and 
rank in society, are so deeply interested as in this. It is, more 
than any other, vitally connected with the public health and morals, 
with the security of property and human life, and with the progress 
of humanity and religion. 

All intelligent, wise, and good men unite in the opinion that the 
traffic in ardent spirits is the cause of more than three fourths of 
the pauperism, crime, and wretchedness with which society is 
afflicted ; that it is more destructive to human life than war, famine, 
pestilence, and fire combined; that it sends its miserable victims to 
the grave in far greater numbers than the legions of Ceesar ever 
fell upon the battle field, or the armies of Napoleon were ever 
sacrificed to his cruel ambition. We are ready to prove, that this 
traffic violates every dictate of humanity, every principle in morals, 
every law in the decalogue, every obligation that an enlightened 
man is under to promote the welfare of his fellow-men and 
the honor of God ; that it impedes the progress of civilization, 

3 



4 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

weakens the force of Christianity, and renders abortive many 
other reforms. We are ready to prove that the monster vice 
which this traffic sustains fills our almshouses with paupers, our 
jails with criminals, our asylums with maniacs, and makes the 
drunkard's home a hell ; that it arms the insane murderer with 
deadly weapons, and lets loose the fiend upon society; that it 
sends forth the midnight incendiary upon his fearful mission; 
palsies the mariner upon the ocean, and leaves the richly-freighted 
ship to be dashed upon the rocks, and the crew to sink in the dark 
waters. On sea and land, in city, town, and village, upon the moun- 
tains, in the valleys and plains, its ravages are discernible. 

Such is the evil which the Massachusetts legislature, prompted 
by a sense of humanity and justice, has undertaken to suppress by 
the force of law. Between this infernal traffic and society it has 
placed this Anti-Liquor Law, that it may crush the former and pro- 
tect the latter ; that it may stay the desolating torrent, and save 
the young and future generations from being swallowed up in the 
fearful vortex. Shall this law be sustained and enforced? On 
the affirmative of this question I submit fifty arguments, drawn 
from the most authentic sources, and entitled to the serious con- 
sideration of every thinking, humane, and Christian man. 



FIFTY ARGUMENTS. 



SECTION I. 



ARGUMENTS TO PROVE THAT THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI- 
LIQUOR LAW OF 1853 IS FOUNDED UPON THE SOUNDEST PRIN- 
CIPLES OF LEGISLATION. 



It is a principle recognized in all civilized communities, that 
society has the right to protect, by legal enactments, the health, lives, 
and moral interests of its citizens. This right is acknowledged in 
every government, legislature, and court in Christendom ; and is an 
inherent element in the organization of society. It cannot be drawn 
into controversy. It cannot be disputed without assailing the basis 
upon which society rests. 

This right extends not only to the enactment of general laws for 
self-protection, the execution of penalties, the appointment of a 
body of police, and the raising of armies for suppressing rebellion 
or resisting foreign invaders, hut also to every thing that tends to 
injure society. 

"Let a man," says Blackstone, "be ever so abandoned in his 
principles, or vicious in his practice, provided he keeps his wicked- 
ness to himself, and does not offend against the rules of public 
decency, he is out of the reach of human laws. But if he makes 
his vices public, though they be such as seem principally to affect 
himself, (as drunkenness or the like,) they then become, by the bad 
example they set, of pernicious effects to society ; and therefore it 
is then the business of human laws to correct them." 

II. 

This principle is acted upon in the laws which are passed 
against gambling, lotteries, profanity, Sabbath breaking, counter- 
feiting money, smuggling, the storage of gunpowder, the exposure 
and sale of demoralizing prints, and any business that endangers 
the public health or morals. We do not depend upon the influence 
of moral suasion to protect society against these evils. We do not 
go to the gambler, and appeal to his conscience, his humanity, his 
1* 5 



O FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

regard for the public welfare. We do not plead with the incen- 
diary, and portray before his mind the suffering' which he occasions, 
depicting- in vivid colors the horrors of a midnight's conflagration. 
We do not depend upon public meetings, speeches, and the force 
of mere argument to prevent men from stealing, or forging, or slan- 
dering one another. Society decrees that these evils shall not be 
permitted. It punishes the offender. It employs its whole force to 
annihilate the evil. 

Neither do we seek, as has been done in regard to intemperance, 
to simply regulate these evils. The government does not license 
annually, out of regard to public depravity, so many incendiaries, or 
thieves, or dealers in tainted meat, or corrupted drugs. It aims to 
remove, not regulate these evils. It does not care to derive a 
revenue from such a system of licensing. 

III. 

The right of society for which we contend has teen repeatedly 
recognized in the laws, which, for years have been on the statute 
book, in relation to the sale of intoxicating drinks. It has been con- 
ceded by the whole community that this traffic is so full of danger, 
and attended by such wide-spread and disastrous consequences, 
that it cannot be left open for any one to engage in. Hence 
special permission has been granted to some to sell intoxicating 
liquors, while others have been prevented by law from dealing in 
them. Now, if society has the right, through its officers, to forbid a 
portion of traders selling ardent spirits on account of the destruc- 
tive effects that would follow, it obviously has the right, for the 
same reason, to suppress the traffic altogether. 

And here I would remark, that the progress of a people from 
a state of barbarism to a state of high civilization, is accurately 
indicated by the number and stringency of their laws enacted to 
suppress the evils that prey upon society. Among savage tribes 
the laws are few, and but imperfectly executed. As a community 
advance in intelligence and virtue, the attempt is at first made to 
regulate an evil, which is afterwards suppressed. The Spartans 
tolerated theft under certain restrictions, and in France abandoned 
females were licensed. Lotteries, gaming, horse racing, and other 
evils were once licensed and under the protection of law. But 
these evils are now suppressed. Even the " art unions " are con- 
demned by the courts for having in them the lottery principle. It is 
clear, therefore, that so enormous an evil as the traffic in intoxicat- 
ing drinks must be crushed by the strong arm of law, or civilization 
must cease to advance. 

IV. 

Society exercises the right of destroying private property when 
it is necessary for the prevention of evil, or the securing of the pub- 
lic good. The goods of the smuggler are seized and confiscated. 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 7 

To arrest a conflagration a house or store may be blown up. 
Tainted meat, damaged hides, the implements of the gambler may 
be seized and destroyed. If tools for counterfeiting, or bank note 
plates, are found in any house, they may be taken forcibly away and 
destroyed ; and there is no cry raised about the injustice of seizing 
private property. And why ? Because counterfeiting is a sin 
against the banks ; and sins against the banks, in this Mammon- 
worshipping age, are unpardonable sins. But here is an article sold 
as a beverage that produces an amount of evil compared with which 
the injury done by these things is as nothing; and yet, when we 
propose to destroy it, loud cries are raised that we are unjustly de- 
stroying private property. Is it not reasonable, instead of man, 
God's image, lying in the gutter, that alcohol should take its turn 
now to lie in the gutter ? 

Upon the point before us, Judge McLean says, " The acknowl- 
edged police power of a state " (5 Howard's Reports, 589) " extends 
often to the destruction of property. A nuisance may be abated. 
Every thing prejudicial to the health or morals of a city may be re- 
moved. Merchandise from a port where a contagious disease pre- 
vails, being liable to communicate disease, may be excluded ; and, 
in extreme cases, it may be thrown into the sea." 



The Massachusetts Anti-Liquor Law, in its fundamental princi- 
ples, is in accordance with the United States Constitution. 

The contrary of this has been repeatedly affirmed, and, indeed, it 
has become quite fashionable of lace, when any great iniquity is to 
be perpetrated, or perpetuated, to invoke the protection of the Unit- 
ed States Constitution. Under the impression that the provisions 
of this instrument are not generally known, many persons are ready 
to make use of it, to set aside the clearest principles of right, and 
the most urg-ent claims of humanity. No document is more grossly 
perverted, and if those who prate about it so much would study it 
more, they would find that its framers never intended that it should 
serve as a shield for wrong doing, or villany in any of its forms. 

But let us hear the testimony of eminent judges upon the point 
before us. Judge Grier gives his opinion in the following distinct 
manner: — 

" It is not necessary to array the appalling statistics of misery, pau- 
perism, and crime, which have their origin in the use and abuse of ar- 
dent spirits. The police power, which is exclusively in the states, is 
alone competent to the correction of these great evils, and all meas- 
ures of restraint or prohibition, necessary to effect the purpose, are 
within the scope of that authority. All laws for the restraint or 
punishment of crime, or the preservation of the public peace, health, 
and morals, are, from their very nature, of primary importance, and 
lie at the foundation of social existence. They are for the protec- 
tion of life and liberty, and necessarily compel all laws on subjects 



8 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

of secondary importance, which relate only to property, conven- 
ience, or luxury, to recede when they come in contact or collision. 
Salus populi suprema lex. If a loss of revenue should accrue to the 
United States from a diminished consumption of ardent spirits, she 
will be the gainer a thousand fold in the wealth and happiness of 
the people." 

Nothing can be more decisive than the opinion of Chief Justice 
Taney, touching the power of a state to prohibit the traffic in the 
most ample manner : — 

" If any state deems the retail and internal traffic in ardent spir- 
its injurious to its citizens, I see nothing in the Constitution to pre- 
vent it from regulating and restraining the traffic, or from prohibit- 
ing it altogether." 

Mr. Justice Catron said, " If the state has the power of 
restraint by licenses to any extent, she has the discretionary power 
to judge of its limits, and may go to the length of prohibiting sales 
altogether." — 5 Howard, 611. 

The late Judge Woodbury said, " After articles have come 
within the territorial limits of states, whether on land or water, the 
destruction itself of what constitutes disease and death, and the 
longer continuance of such articles within their limits, or the terms 
and conditions of their continuance, when conflicting with their 
legitimate police, or with their power over internal commerce, or 
with their right of taxation over all persons and property within 
their jurisdiction, seems one of the first principles of state sovereign- 
ty, and indispensable to public safety." — 5 Howard, 630. 

Mr. Justice Daniel said of imports that are " cleared of all 
control of the government," " They are like all other property of 
the citizen, whether owned by the importer or his vendee, or may 
have been purchased by cargo, package, bale, piece, or yard, or by 
hogsheads, casks, or bottles." In answering the argument that the 
importer purchases the right to sell when he pays duties to govern- 
ment, Mr. Justice Daniel continues to say, " No such right is pur- 
chased by the importer ; he cannot purchase from the government 
that which it could not insure to him — a sale independently of the 
laws and policy of the state." 

VI. 

Look now at the action of Congress, by which the principle under 
consideration is directly sanctioned. 

Congress, in 1834, passed an act abolishing the rum traffic in the 
Indian territories, and have since passed the following amendment, 
to wit : — 

Sect. 2. And be it further enacted, That the (20th) twentieth sec- 
tion of the " Act to regulate Trade and Intercourse with the Indian 
Tribes, and to preserve Peace on the Frontiers," approved June 
thirtieth, eighteen hundred and thirty-four, be, and the same is, 
hereby so amended, that, in addition to the fines thereby imposed, 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. i) 

any person who shall sell, exchange, or barter, give or dispose of 
any spirituous liquor or wine to an Indian, in the Indian country, or 
who shall introduce, or attempt to introduce, any spirituous liquor or 
wine into the Indian country, except such supplies as may be neces- 
sary for the officers of the United States, and the troops of the ser- 
vice, under the direction of the War Department, such person, on 
conviction thereof before the proper District Court of the United 
States, shall in the former case be subject to imprisonment for a 
period not exceeding- two years, and in the latter case not exceed- 
ing one year, as shall be prescribed by the court, according to the 
extent and criminality of the offence ; and in all prosecutions 
arising under this section, and under the twentieth section of the 
" Act to regulate Trade and Intercourse with the Indian Tribes, 
and to preserve Peace. on the Frontiers," approved June thirtieth, 
eighteen hundred and thirty-four, to which this is an amendment, 
Indians shall be competent witnesses. 

VII. 

This law is in accordance with the Constitution of Massachu- 
setts. The seventh article of the Declaration of Rights is as fol- 
lows : " Government is instituted for the common good ; for the pro- 
tection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people ; and not for 
the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or any 
one class of men. Therefore the people alone have an incontesta- 
ble, inalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government, and 
to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, 
safety, prosperity, and happiness require it." 

No language can express more clearly or decisively the right for 
which we contend than this ; and if this principle cannot be applied 
to the protection of the community against the vast evils of intem- 
perance, then we are at a loss to know how it is applicable to any evil. 

VIII. 

This law is cordially sustained by the great mass of intelli- 
gent and virtuous citizens of the commonwealth, by the clergy 
of various denominations, by the members of our churches, offi- 
cers of our benevolent and charitable societies, as well as by many 
of our ablest statesmen. It has been enthusiastically received 
by tens of thousands throughout the state and throughout the 
Union. Addresses in its support have been delivered in almost ev- 
ery city, town, and village in the commonwealth. Conventions have 
been held, of a highly respectable and religious character, at which 
party and sectarian distinctions have been thrown aside, and all the 
members have united in the pledge to make every effort in their 
power to sustain and execute this law. It is regarded as the most 
precious boon that the government of the state ever presented to 
the people. Prayers have ascended to heaven in its behalf. The 
warmest blessings have been invoked upon its authors. 



10 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

Of the hundreds of resolutions passed by different bodies in its 
favor, I will quote a portion of those that were unanimously adopted 
at the last meeting of the General Association of Congregational 
Ministers of Massachusetts, held in Lowell in June, 1852. They 
are as follows : — 

Resolved, That this Association cordially approves of the law re- 
cently passed by the legislature of this state called the " Liquor 
Law," and soon to go into operation. 

Resolved, That, as ministers of the gospel, we will ourselves yield 
to the requisitions of this law, and do all we can to induce others to 
sustain it. 

Resolved, That we have strong confidence in the ability and dis- 
position of a large majority of the population of the state to give 
such an efficient execution to this law as will secure to the commu- 
nity the great benefits it is adapted to confer. 

At the great Worcester Convention over twenty resolutions 
were unanimously passed, of which the following is one : — 

Resolved, That as friends of humanity, of religion, and of our 
country, we rejoice that these principles have at length been em- 
bodied in the law enacted by the legislature of this state, at their 
last session, for the suppression of the sale of intoxicating drinks ; 
that we regard this law as eminently adapted to gain the true 
ends of human legislation, the defence of the pecuniary interests, 
the morals, the religion, the liberty, and the general welfare and 
happiness of the community ; that therefore we regard it as emi- 
nently invested with righteous authority as an ordinance of God, 
designed and adapted to be a terror to evil doers, and a praise to 
them that do well. 

IX 

Opinions of distinguished men in relation to the law. 

The late Hon. Orin Fowler, in a letter to a member of the 
Worcester Convention, said, " I hope you and all the friends of 
the new law will be fully prepared for the noble work of carrying 
into full effect that most beneficent statute — a statute which, if 
faithfully executed, will add much to the high renown of our 
cherished commonwealth." 

The late Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr., said, in addressing the 
State Temperance Committee, "Be assured that my whole heart 
is in the great work, than which none that is nobler, worthier, 
holier, could be undertaken by men. The great object of govern- 
ment is the protection of life, liberty, and property. That it is not 
only a right, but an imperative duty, to suppress any trade or prac- 
tice whose principal effect is the destruction of these, I have never 
doubted, nor do I doubt that your purpose will be ultimately 
accomplished." 

Rev. Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, says, "The evils of 
intemperance are in all respects so great, and are, in spite of all 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 1] 

the legal enactments now existing 1 , so far spread and spreading in 
the land : the loss to the nation in its moral character, and in its 
productive industry, is so great ; the costs of prosecuting for crime 
committed under the influence of intoxicating drinks, and the taxes 
to support paupers made by intemperance, are so great ; the failure 
of the appeals made by argument and moral suasion are, in painful 
respects, so manifest ; the woes and lamentations caused by in- 
temperance come up still so loud and so piercing from all parts of 
the land ; the ruin of the body and the soul of a human being is so 
dreadful ; and the fact that tens of thousands of our countrymen 
are annually sent to a dishonored grave as the result of the ' drink- 
ing usages of society,' — these things are forcing the inquiry upon 
the public mind, whether it is, or is not, proper and practicable to 
prohibit the traffic altogether, and whether this is not the point 
which legislation must reach, and should reach, in regard to this 
great evil. With a view, therefore, to the formation of a correct 
public opinion, as far as my voice may have any influence, and ulti- 
mately to a change in the whole course of legislation on this sub- 
ject in our commonwealth and country, I propose to submit to you 
a few considerations on the propriety of a law, prohibiting entirely, 
with suitable penalties, the traffic in intoxicating liquors as a 
beverage." 

Hon. Horace Mann says, " The friends of temperance have 
achieved a position entirely new. The ' Maine Law ' is as great a 
discovery in morals as steam was in physics. We now have an 
instrument of vast power, which a single man can put in motion. 
And is it possible that there can be, any where within the boundaries 
of old Pilgrim Massachusetts, a single rendezvous of all the curses 
and crimes that torment society, which has not some ' follower of 
God and friend of humankind ' near by, who will apply the torch 
and send it to quick destruction ? For this purpose, the whole 
state must be thoroughly organized — county, town, city, ward, &c. 
Wherever an enemy lies in ambush, watching his opportunity to 
spring forth and destroy the happiness and peace of society, there 
let a company of faithful sentinels be placed to resist and defeat 
him." 

L. M. Sargent, Esq., of Boston, in a letter to the Hon. Neal 
Dow, dated January 8, ] 852, says, — 

" After grave reflection, I hesitate not to say, that, in my humble 
opinion, a repeal, or any serious modification, of your admirable 
law would inflict a heavier blow upon the cause, at the present 
moment, than has ever been inflicted since the days of its very first 
life-cry, in this commonwealth, in 1812. The enactment of your 
law, and its excellent results, thus far, have marked an epoch in 
the reformation. It has satisfied the wavering and the incredulous, 
who had begun to look upon the labors of temperance men as very 
closely resembling those of Penelope upon her interminable web, 
that -the evils of intemperance were not necessarily irremovable. 



12 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

To the cry issuing- from a thousand times ten thousand aching 
hearts, throughout the world — Can nothing be done to stay 
the plague? — it furnishes the only satisfactory answer, it ap- 
pears to me, that has ever been offered since the commencement of 
the reformation. Ay, thanks be to God, something can be done ! 
This cruel idolatry must come to an end. Maine has supplied this 
alcoholic Juggernaut with her full proportion of human victims. 
She has resolved to'deal with the temples of idolatry, and the idols 
of a misguided people, in the form of stone jugs, as Cortez dealt 
with the temples of the idols of the Aztecs, and to put an end to 
these human sacrifices forever. 

" My dear sir, I am a Massachusetts man — bone of her bone and 
flesh of her flesh. God knows how ardently I have hoped for her 
deliverance from this colossal curse of intemperance, and that the 
time might come, while I yet lived, when, from this cause at least, 
there should be no more leading into captivity, nor complaining in 
her streets. As a harbinger of this blessed condition of things, I 
have seen nothing so much like a leading cynosure, a star of prom- 
ise in the east, as this noble act of vigorous and practical philan- 
thropy, accomplished by the lawgivers of Maine. It has placed 
me, as it were, upon a moral Pisgah, and given me a glimpse, how- 
ever distant, of the promised land." 

From Hon. Thomas S. Williams, Chief Justice of Connecticut. 

"Hartford, January 15, 1852. 

" Rev. Calvin E. Stowe. Dear Sir : Yours of the 31st De- 
cember last, inviting my attendance at the great meeting of the 
friends of temperance, to take place at Augusta on the 21st and 22d 
of January, was duly received. 

" I cannot forbear to congratulate you upon the triumph the cause 
of temperance has achieved in your state in the passage of the law, 
(now known as the ' Maine law,') and the manner in which it has 
been executed. 

" Honor to the men by whose energy this mighty victory has been 
won. Honor to the legislature who yielded to the wishes of a vir- 
tuous community. Honor to those who have so "faithfully executed 
it ; and honor to those who, being originally opposed to the law, 
have now become its strenuous supporters. 

" As a matter of political economy, the value of this law can hardly 
be over-estimated — but in its moral bearings, it is beyond all 
price. 

" You will now be met by the outcry that the law is unconstitu- 
tional. This is the common argument when others fail, and it is 
readily adopted by those who dislike the restraints of a good law. 
But those who have read, or will read, the opinions given by the 
judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, the legal ex- 
pounders of the Constitution, in the license cases, so called, will 
have no fears upon that point." 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 13 

From E. C. Delavan, Esq. 

"Ballston Centre, January 8, 1852. 

" Hon. Neal Dow. My dear Sir : I have this day received 
your kind invitation to attend the great temperance meeting- at Au- 
gusta. I feel that I would willingly lay down what remains of life 
and estate, not already exhausted, to promote the purification of the 
world from the sin of spirit drinking and selling, could I, by so 
doing, secure to my own native state your law, with the certainty 
that it could be carried out ; for such a law, made fully effective in 
this state, would result in such a change of condition in a moral, 
religious, and pecuniary point of view, as would astonish the whole 
world, as well as the people of the state. Would that I could think 
we are ready for your law now. I hope we are ready. I hope I am 
mistaken in -thinking that much hard work is to be done before we 
are ready, although enough has been done, one would think, to have 
made us ready. Your success will aid us. I am glad to see your 
law made the basis of action all over our state." 

A writer in the North American Review for April, 1852, p. 470, 
while discussing the right of society to protect itself, says, — 

"Whatever be the rights of property, they weigh nothing against 
the rights of humanity. Nor is the interest of an individual to be 
set off against the interests of a community. Suppose a man were to 
erect an establishment which should bring him in a rich return upon 
his outlay, but which, from some neglect on his part, should be the 
source of continual expense and suffering to all his neighbors ; 
no one would doubt that the government of the place ought to 
interfere to compel him to remedy the defect — no government 
would hesitate to do it." 



SECTION II. 

THE SPECIFIC EVILS' OF INTEMPERANCE WHICH PENDER SUCH 
A LAW NECESSARY. 

X. 

In entering upon this branch of our argument we are appalled 
by the enormity and aggravated character of the evil, which it is 
the design of this law to suppress. Words lose their force when 
we attempt to describe it. Language breaks down under the 
weight of its enormities. Images, epithets, the most comprehen- 
sive and intense utterances fail to set forth the evil in its true light. 
Under statistical reports there are living forms of degradation, vice, 
and wretchedness, which, should they appear before us, would fill 
the mind with horror. The word intemperance has never been defined, 
and cannot be defined. Eternity alone can reveal its full meaning. 

In glancing, however, at some of its obvious features, I would 
allude first to the cost which it occasions. From the most accurate 
9 



14 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

data gathered from custom house books and the declarations of 
distillers, it appears that over 60,000,0QQ gallons of ardent spirits are 
annually consumed in the United States, at a cost of $30,000,000. 
Add to this the expenses of the pauperism and crime growing out of 
intemperance, to say nothing of the losses occasioned by intemper- 
ate agents, seamen, &c, and we have an aggregate of at least 
$120,000,000 which is annually sacrificed in our country — one 
hundred and twenty millions of dollars, for which we receive no 
return except poverty, wretchedness, tears, and curses. 

" This sum would build twelve such canals as the Grand Erie 
and Hudson Canal every year ; it would support a navy four times 
as large as that of Great Britain ; it is sixty times as much as the 
aggregate income of all the principal religious charitable societies 
in Europe and America ; it would supply every family on the earth 
with a Bible in eight months; it would support a missionary or 
teacher among every two thousand souls on the globe ! " 

" In Great Britain, it appears from statistics published by direc- 
tion of Parliament, a few years ago, that, while the annual expense 
for bread was about $130,000,000, the immediate cost of the liquor 
consumed was $250,000,000. This sum must be doubled to get at 
the entire expense connected with it ; making the whole yearly 
loss from intemperance, $500,000,000." 

XL 

Taxation. It is computed that for every $1000 profit that a 
dealer makes on the sale of intoxicating drinks, the community are 
taxed between $6000 and $8000 to support the pauperism and crime 
consequent upon the quantity sold which yields this profit. , Why 
the virtuous and industrious portion of society should be thus ex- 
orbitantly taxed to enable the rum seller to gratify his avarice is a 
question which we leave to our legislators to decide. Is it not 
reasonable that those who live in luxury upon the profits of this 
traffic should support their own paupers ? But we may be told that 
the dealers pay for their licenses. I would ask how much ? Take 
a single fact. 

The exact sum received in the city and county of Philadelphia 
for tavern licenses, in the year 1851, was $66,302. The expenses 
for prosecuting for crime, and for the support of pauperism, conse- 
quent on intemperance, in the city and county, was, for the same 
year, as accurately as it can be computed, $365,000. 

But let us see what becomes of a large portion of the enormous 
taxes which the citizens of Boston are annually called upon to pay. 
From the " Auditor's Fortieth Annual Report of the Receipts and 
Expenditures of the City of Boston, and the County of Suffolk, for 
the financial Year 1851-2," I make the following extracts : — 

Expended for House of Correction, - - - -$17,503 15 
" House of Industry and Deer Island, - 85,989 09 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 15 

Expended for Overseers of the Poor, and other poor, - 26,802 36 
" Old claims, 1,714 38 

" The New Jail and Almshouse at Deer Island have both been 
completed. The former has been appropriated, since the month of 
November last, to its intended purposes, and the latter is ready for 
such occupancy, waiting only the authority of the city council. 
The total cost of the New Jail, including some furniture, is 
8501,854 83; that of the Almshouse, including cooking and 
warming apparatus and some furniture, is $166,200 34." 

The net revenue of the year has been derived from the follow- 
ing sources : — 

Taxes, $1,301,024 28 

Rents, -------- 72,466 16 

Fees, «fec, 2,534 45 

Licenses, 1,751 00 

Hay Scales, 1,204 1 8 

$1,378,980 07 

Thus it appears that the hay scales yield nearly as much rev- 
enue as the licenses ! Now, if the government really need the 
revenue from licenses, might it not be well to withdraw the licenses, 
and double the charges for Aveighing hay ? 

Under the head of " Appropriations for the financial year 1852-3," 
I find the following estimates : — 

For House of Correction, ------ $35,500 

" Houses of Industry and Reformation at South 

Boston and establishment at Deer Island, 80,000 

" Lunatic Hospital, 22,000 

" Police, 40,000 

" Watch department, 85,000 

Let any one converse with the superintendents of these estab- 
lishments, and learn from them how much of this vast expense is in 
consequence of the traffic in intoxicating drinks. 

XII. 

Pauperism. According to the Report for 1850, there were in this 
state fourteen thousand six hundred and seventy-four paupers, made 
such, directly or indirectly, by intemperance. A careful writer says, 
" Of three thousand persons admitted to the workhouse in Salem, 
Mass., two thousand nine hundred were brought there directly or 
indirectly by intemperance. Of five hundred and ninety-two male 
adults in the almshouse in New York, not twenty, says the super- 
intendent, can be called sober ; and of six hundred and one women, 
not as many as fifty." 

In the Annual Report of the " Boston Society for the Prevention 
of Pauperism" for 1852, 1 find this statement: " These places (dram 



16 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

shops) are the nurseries of pauperism, crime, and disease, and do 
more to fill our charitable and criminal institutions, and to swell the 
bills of mortality, than all other causes put together. All efforts to 
eradicate pauperism and crime must, in a measure, prove fruitless 
until these places are closed." 

Investigations in regard to this point, in other states, show that in 
New York seventeen hundred out of nineteen hundred in the poor- 
houses owe their pauperism to intemperance. In New Haven the 
proportion is two thirds, and in Hartford the same. Such facts 
need no comment. If they cannot of themselves influence public 
opinion, then no appeals can be of any avail. 

XIII 

Intemperance is the chief cause of crime. From statistical re- 
ports it can be proved that more than four fifths of the crimes 
which are committed are produced by alcoholic drinks. This is the 
opinion of Hon. Felix Grundy, U. S. senator from Tennessee, 
after thirty years' extensive practice in the law, and of many other 
distinguished lawyers. The warden of the New York city prison, 
in a letter to the state assembly, testifies that of eighteen thousand 
and forty-two commitments to that prison in 1849, at least fourteen 
thousand were for crimes caused by intemperate habits. In many 
of the prisons scarcely a single inmate can be found who has en- 
tirely abstained from intoxicating drinks. Dr. Justin Edwards says, 
that of one thousand seven hundred and sixty-four criminals in dif- 
ferent prisons, more than thirteen hundred were either intemperate 
men, or were under the influence of alcohol when they committed 
their crimes. 

The following results are stated on the authority of a document 
entitled " Abstract of Returns of the Keepers of Jails and Over- 
seers of the Houses of Correction for the Year ending November 
], 1851 : prepared for the Use of the Legislature by the Secretary 
of the Commonwealth : " — 

Commitments to the Jails of Massachusetts during the Year ending 
November 1, 1851. 

For Intemperance in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1507 

" Salem, Essex County, ------ 367 

" Ipswich, Essex County, ----- 5 

" Cambridge, Middlesex County, - - - 50 

" Worcester, Worcester County, - 5 

" Northampton, Hampshire County, 18 

" Lenox, Berkshire County, - 10 

" New Bedford, Bristol County, 35 

" Plymouth, Plymouth County, - 00 

" Nantucket, Nantucket County, 1 

" Newburyport, Essex County, - 16 

" Lowell, Middlesex County, ----- 83 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LA.W. 17 

For Intemperance in Concord, Middlesex County, 00 

" Greenfield, Franklin County, - 00 

" Springfield, Hampden County, - 4 

" Dedham, Norfolk County, - - - - - 90 

" Taunton, Bristol County, ----- 31 

" Barnstable, Barnstable County, - - - - 2 

" Edgartown, Dukes' County, - - - - 00 

Committed to the jail in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachu- 
setts, year ending November 1, 1851, for intemperance, 1507 

Committed to all the jails in all the other counties in the 

commonwealth, -------- 714 

Showing nearly twice as many committed to the jail in Boston 
as in all the other counties ! 

While the population of Boston is about - 140,000 

And the population of all the other counties about - 860,000 

The following table has been compiled from the " Jail Returns 
and Legislative Documents in the office of the secretary of the 
commonwealth." 

It exhibits a comparison of the city and the country in regard to 
the crimes specified, and shows what proportion of the whole are 
for intemperance. 

Other Cos. 

7 
10 

- 11 
3 

- 66 
12 

- 694 

9 

- 25 
5 
5 

75 

8 

529 

6 
19 
5 
5 
5 
8 

- 512 



1851. 


Boston, Suffolk County. 


Murder, 


4 


Arson, 


6 


Rape, - - - 


3 


Highway robbery, 


12 


Burglary, 


73 


Keeping brothels, 


60 


Intemperance, 


- 1567 


1849. 




Murder, - 


6 


Arson, - - - 





Rape, 


1 


Highway robbeiy, 


14 


Burglary, - 


126 


Keeping brothels, 


55 


Intemperance, - 


1172 


1850. 




Murder, 


4 


Arson, 


2 


Rape, - - - 


9 


Highway robbery, 


5 


Burglary, 


63 


Keeping brothels, 


46 


intemperance, 


- 400 


2* 





18 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

XIV. 

Murders committed. It is estimated that in the United States 
about one murder is caused every day by the agency of rum ; and 
during the past year, two hundred suicides have, under the influence 
of intemperance, rushed into the presence of the supreme Judge of 
the universe. Those engaged in the trials of capital offences testify 
that of forty-four murders, forty-three were committed by intem- 
perate men, or upon those addicted to this vice. Such a fact seems 
astounding ; and yet, when we consider how intemperance deadens 
the moral faculties, blasts the conscience, and inflames the worst 
passions of the soul, turning a human being into a bloodthirsty 
fiend, we are not astonished at the result. But we are astonished 
that civilized men will continue to sell an article which they know 
will lead directly to such fearful consequences. We are amazed 
that the people who are so vigilant in regard to protecting life from 
danger from other sources ; who insist upon having a railroad ac- 
cident investigated with the greatest care, that it may be publicly 
known upon whom the blame rests ; who are so ready to shun an 
apothecary's shop where a single mistake in putting up medicine has 
been made ; who censure and punish a physician for one case of 
malpractice, — should at the same time sustain a traffic that it is 
known beforehand will lead to murder and every other crime. 

" During a warmly-contested election in the city of New York, 
it is stated in the daily papers that numerous applications were 
made for pistols to those who kept them for sale. It is added that 
the application was extensively denied, on the ground of the appre- 
hension that they were intended for bloodshed in the excitement of 
the contest. This was a noble instance of principle. But on the 
plea of the dealer in ardent spirits, why should they have been 
withheld ? The dealer in firearms might have pleaded, as the traf- 
ficker in poison does, ' This is my business. I obtain a livelihood 
by it. 1 am not responsible for what will be done with the firearms. 
True, the people are agitated. I have every reason to believe that 
application is made with a purpose to take life. True, blood may 
flow, and useful lives may be lost. But I am not responsible. If 
they take life, they are answerable. The excitement is a favorable 
opportunity to dispose of my stock on hand, and it is a part of my 
business to avail myself of all favorable circumstances in the com- 
munity to make money.' Who would not have been struck with 
the cold-blooded and inhuman avarice of such a man ? And yet 
there was not half the moral certainty that those firearms would 
have been used for purposes of blood, that there is that ardent 
spirits will be employed to produce crime, and poverty, and death." 

XV 

Insanity. At this hour there are in the State of Massachu- 
setts over three hundred maniacs, whose reason has been dethroned 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 19 

by this accursed evil. Among this number there are young - men, 
who early gave promise of great distinction and usefulness — before 
whom life opened joyfully and brilliantly, but who, falling into the 
embrace of the demon Alcohol, had their hopes blasted and their fine 
intellects shattered. Even the learned professions have contributed 
their proportion to this unfortunate company. From careful ob- 
servation, for a series of years, in this country and Great Britain, it 
was found that, in many parts of both nations, more than fifty per 
cent, of the insanity was caused by intoxicating drinks. 

" Dr. John Percy, a graduate of the Edinburgh University, states, 
in his prize essay, (London, 1839,) that after poisoning dogs with alco- 
hol, he had obtained it from distilling portions of the brain, liver, &c. 
And in a variety of experiments he found that a greater amount of 
alcohol was obtained from the brain than from an equal weight of 
liver, lung, or any other organ. The effect of alcohol in hardening 
the brain and nerves may be thus explained : The nervous struc- 
ture being composed of nearly nine tenths water, in order to de- 
fend itself against the influence of the alcoholic poison, imparts a 
portion of its water to dilute the offending agent, and thus miti- 
gate its destructive effect. In habitual dram drinkers this process 
must go on continually ; hence the result is uniformly a consolidating 
or hardening effect on the whole nervous tissue, thus perverting all 
the natural sensibilities, and in effect paralyzing the organ of mind." 

XVI. 

Idiocy. From the first state report upon idiocy in Massachu- 
setts, it appears that of fourteen hundred idiots, five hundred were 
born so in consequence of having drunken parents. While visit- 
ing, not long since, the General Hospital, in Boston, I observed an 
idiotic child seated upon a bed in one of the apartments. I inquired 
into the history of her parents. The superintendent informed me 
that her father was formerly an intemperate man ; that while such, 
he had three children, all of whom were idiots ; that afterwards he 
abandoned his cups, and, while a temperate man, had children who 
were as bright and intelligent as any others. With what monu- 
ments of the divine displeasure towards this awful sin does the 
drunken father surround himself! To gaze year after year upon a 
little group of idiotic children made such by his own vice, to be con- 
scious that he has himself defrauded them of reason, of hope, of hap- 
piness, must, if he has any of the feelings of a father, produce the 
most intense agony. An eminent physician says on this point, — 

"There is another consideration, in my own opinion, of more 
appalling magnitude than anything else connected with this m hole 
subject, and it is a consideration to which the public mind has been 
seldom directed ; and I would that its truth could be clothed in 
sunbeams of light, and sped like lightning's flash to the judgment 
and conscience of every member of the whole family of mankind ! 
I mean the transmission of organism from parent to child. We know 



20 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

that the alcoholic poison diseases and vitiates the whole organiza- 
tion. We know, too, that organization, good or bad, is transmissi- 
ble. What a thought ! for a parent to transmit to his offspring a 
depraved, imperfect, and malformed organization! 

" If there is one duty high as heaven, and solemn as eternity, and 
paramount to all others, devolving on parents in this relation, it is 
to transmit to posterity pure, perfect, and uncontaminated tene- 
ments, in which for those spirits to sojourn, which are to animate 
and actuate them through life's whole pilgrimage. A drunken 
parent can never be the father or mother of healthy offspring ; nor 
can an habitual moderate drinker be the progenitor of an issue as 
sound and perfect as it should be. If an immoderately dram-drink- 
mg man's organization is injured in a great degree, a moderately 
dram-drinking man's organization is injured in a lesser degree ; and 
to look for a progeny faultless in form, and of strict integrity of 
structure and function, from a degenerate parental organism, is 
looking for a kind of miracle that never did and never will happen." 

And yet the traffic that perpetuates this and a thousand other 
evils, many persons tell us, ought not to be suppressed by law ! 
They gravely argue that such an act would be unconstitutional ! 
Should the devil himself appear in a tangible form, and go through 
our streets as a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour, I appre- 
hend that some of our prudent citizens would object to having him 
seized and destroyed, because there is no provision in the constitution 
for so doing. Particularly if it should be found that he had taken 
out a license, his right to protection would be regarded as almost 
sacred, by these profound defenders of the constitution! 

XVII. 

Influence of this traffic in producing ordinary diseases. On 
this point let me give the opinions of eminent physicians. One 
says, after forty years' extensive practice, " Half the men every 
year who die of fevers might recover, had they not been in the 
habit of using ardent spirit. Many a man, down for weeks with a 
fever, had he not used ardent spirit, would not have been confined 
to his house a day. He might have felt a slight headache, but a 
little fasting would have removed the difficulty, and the man been 
well. And many a man who was never intoxicated, when visited 
with a fever, might be raised up as well as not, were it not for that 
state of the system which daily moderate drinking occasions, who 
now, in spite of all that can be done, sinks down and dies." 

Dr. Harris states, that the moderate use of spirituous 
liquors has destroyed many who were never drunk ; and Dr. Kirk 
gives it as his opinion, that men who were never considered intem- 
perate, by daily drinking have often shortened life more than 
twenty years ; and that the respectable use of this poison kills more 
men than even drunkenness. Dr. Wilson gives it as his opinion, 
that the use of spirit in large cities causes more diseases than 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 21 

confined air, unwholesome exhalations, and the combined influence 
of all other evils. 

Dr. Moselt, after a long residence in the West Indies, declares, 
" that persons who drink nothing but cold water, or make it their 
principal drink, are but little affected by tropical climates ; that they 
undergo the greatest fatigue without inconvenience, and are not so 
subject as others to dangerous diseases ;" and Dr. Bell, "that rum, 
when used even moderately, always diminishes the strength, and 
renders men more susceptible of disease ; and that we might as 
well throw oil into a house, the roof of which is on fire, in order to 
prevent the flames from extending to the inside, as to pour ardent 
spirits into the stomach to prevent the effect of a hot sun upon the 
skin." 

XVIII. 

The cholera. That the fifteen hundred rum sellers in the city 
of Boston are doing what they can to bring back the cholera, and 
are preparing victims for that dreadful plague should it return, is 
abundantly proved by the following facts collected by the Rev. 
Dr. Edwards : — 

Says the London Morning Herald, after stating that the cholera 
fastens its deadly grasp upon this class of men, " The same prefer- 
ence for the intemperate and uncleanly has characterized the cholera 
every where. Intemperance is a qualification which it never over- 
looks. Often has it passed harmless over a wide population of tem- 
perate country people, and poured down, as an overflowing scourge, 
upon the drunkards of some distant town." Says another English 
publication, " All experience, both in Great Britain and elsewhere, 
has proved that those who have been addicted to drinking spirituous 
liquors, and indugling in irregular habits, have been the greatest 
sufferers from cholera. In some towns the drunkards are all dead." 
Rammohun Fingee, the famous Indian doctor, says, with regard to 
India, that people who do not take opium or spirits do not take this 
disorder even when they are with those who have it. Monsieur 
Huber, who saw 2160 persons perish in twenty-five days in one 
town in Russia, says, " It is a most remarkable circumstance that 
persons given to drinking have been swept away like flies. In Tif- 
lis, containing 20,000 inhabitants, every drunkard has fallen — all 
are dead — not one remains." 

Dr. Sewall, of Washington city, in a letter from New York, 
states that of 204 cases of cholera in the Park Hospital, there were 
only six temperate persons,, and that those had recovered; while 122 
of the others, when he wrote, had died ; and that the facts were sim- 
ilar in all the other hospitals. 

" In Albany a careful examination was made by respectable gen- 
tlemen into the cases of those who died of the cholera in that 
city in 1832, over sixteen years of age. The result was examined 
in detail by nine physicians, members of the medical staff attached 



22 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

to the board of health in that city, — all who belong to 't except 
two, who were at that time absent, — and published at their request, 
under the signature of the chancellor of the state, and the five dis- 
tinguished gentlemen who compose the executive committee of the 
New York State Temperance Society, and is as follows : Number 
of deaths, 366 ; viz., intemperate, 140 ; free drinkers, 55 ; moderate 
drinkers, mostly habitual, 131 ; strictly temperate, who drank no ar- 
dent spirits, 5 ; members of Temperance Societies, 2 ; and when it 
is recollected that of more than 5000 members of Temperance Soci- 
eties in the city of Albany, only two, not one in 2500, fell by this 
disease, while it cut off more than one in fifty of the inhabitants of 
that city, we cannot but feel that men who furnish ardent spirit as 
a drink for their fellow-men are manifestly inviting the ravages 
and preparing the victims of this fatal malady, and of numerous 
other mortal diseases." 

XIX. 

Delirium tremens. This is another specific evil that is sure 
to result from the excessive use of ardent spirits. It is thus de- 
scribed by one who has himself experienced it : " For three days I 
endured more agony than pen could describe, even were it guided 
by the hand of a Dante. Who can tell the horrors of that horrible 
malady, aggravated as it is by the almost ever abiding consciousness 
that it is self-sought ? Hideous faces appeared on the walls, and 
on the ceiling, and on the floors ; foul things crept along the bed 
clothes, and glaring eyes peered into mine. I was at one time sur- 
rounded by millions of monstrous spiders, who crawled slowly, slow- 
ly, over every limb ; whilst drops of perspiration would start to my 
brow, and my limbs would shiver until the bed rattled again. 
Strange lights would dance before my eyes, and then, suddenly, the 
very blackness of darkness would appall me by its dense gloom. 
All at once, whilst gazing at a frightful creation of my distempered 
mind, I seemed struck with sudden blindness. I knew a candle was 
burning in the room, but I could not see it, all was so pitchy dark. 
I lost the sense of feeling, too ; for I attempted to grasp my arm in 
one hand, but consciousness was gone. I put my hand to my side, 
my head, but felt nothing ; and still I knew that my limbs and frame 
ivere there. And then the scene would change. I was falling, 
falling, swiftly as an arrow, far down into some terrible abyss ; and 
so like reality was it, that, as I fell, I could see the rocky sides of 
the horrible shaft, where mocking, gibing, waving, fiendlike forms 
were perched ; and I could feel the air rushing past me, making my 
hair stream out by the unwholesome blast. Then the paroxysm 
sometimes ceased for a few moments, and I would sink back on my 
pallet drenched with perspiration, utterly exhausted, and feeling a 
dreadful certainty of the renewal of my torments." 

Such is the picture of this terrible malady. Now, were there in 
this community shops in Avhich were kept for sale the delirium 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 23 

tremens, the cholera, fevers, insanity, &c, would such a traffic be 
tolerated for a single day ? Would any respectable citizen stand 
up before an enlightened audience, or in a legislative hall, and after 
distinctly admitting the facts of the case, and declaring himself op- 
posed to the traffic, argue that it was a fanatical measure to close 
these shops at once by the force of law ? Yet what is the difference 
between selling these specific evils, and selling an article that the 
dealer knows will certainly produce them ? 

XX. 

Spontaneous combustion of drunkards. Professor R. D. 
Musset, M. D., says, " The bodies of some drunkards have been 
so thoroughly steeped in spirit as literally to take fire and consume 
to ashes. It is said that no case of this combustion has ever oc- 
curred except among hard drinkers ; and it is altogether probable 
that, in every such case, an inflammable air has exhaled from the 
lungs or skin, and has been kindled by the too near approach of a 
lighted taper, or some ignited substance. There is doubtless more 
danger than has been imagined in a deep drinker's bringing his 
mouth or nose close to a lighted taper at evening. The wonder is, 
that instances of the combustion of drunkards should so rarely have 
occurred. Plouquet mentions twenty-eight cases." 

Trotter mentions over fifty cases, and describes them at length. 
I will state but one of them. It is that " of a woman eighty years 
of age, exceedingly meagre, who had drunk nothing but ardent 
spirits for several years. She was sitting in her elbow chair, while 
her waiting maid went out of the room for a few moments. On her 
return, seeing her mistress on fire, she immediately gave the alarm ; 
and some people coming to her assistance, one of them endeavored 
to extinguish the flames with his hands, but they adhered to them as 
if they had been dipped in brandy or oil on fire. Water was brought 
and thrown on the body in abundance, yet the fire appeared more vio- 
lent, and ivas not extinguished till the whole body had been consumed. 
The lady was in the same place in which she sat every day, there 
was no extraordinary fire, and she had not fallen." 

XXI. 

Mortality among drunkards. Besides those who are carried 
off by other diseases that are produced or aggravated by intem- 
perance, it is estimated that in this country alone 30,000 persons are 
annually destroyed by alcohol. Yes ; to this Moloch we Christians, 
in Protestant, free, enlightened America, annually sacrifice thirty 
thousand human victims ! They are selected from almost every 
family or circle of relatives in the land. Who is there who cannot 
recall the name of some near relative who has been offered up ? 
Beloved husbands, fathers, brothers are among the melancholy 
group. " In New Brunswick, New Jersey, of sixty-seven adult 
deaths in one year, more than one third were caused by intoxicating 



24 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

liquor. In Philadelphia, of 4292 deaths, 700 were, in the opinion of 
the College of Physicians and Surgeons, caused in the same way. 
The physicians of Annapolis, Maryland, state that of thirty-two per- 
sons, male and female, who died in 1828, above eighteen years of 
age, ten, or nearly one third, died of diseases occasioned by intem- 
perance." 

And still the work goes on. Every newspaper records some in- 
stance of sacrifice. One perishes by cold. Another falls into the 
dock or river. Another is prostrated upon a railroad, and the en- 
gine becomes the executioner. Another dies in the midst of a fam- 
ily which he has cursed, cursed, cursed. Imprecations, oaths, dis- 
ease, wretchedness, are the legacy he leaves. Shall the work still 
go on ? Yes, answer many of our legislators. Yes, answer many 
voters. Yes, answer mayors of our cities. Yes, shout the rum 
sellers in the commonwealth. Yes, Yes, shriek the lost spirits 
with fiendish glee, who glory in human wretchedness ! 

XXII. 

Rum drinking destroys the soul. "No drunkard shall inherit 
the kingdom of God," is the declaration that has come to us from 
the eternal throne. This point is too obvious to need dwelling 
upon. He who dies a drunkard dies eternally. His immortal soul, 
made in the image of the infinite God, designed as the temple of 
the Deity, made capable of soaring with angels and enjoying com- 
panionship with the holiest and loftiest beings in the universe, is 
lost ! More than thirty thousand immortal beings go from this land 
of Bibles, churches, and revivals every year into eternity with the 
drunkard's doom before them. Is this nothing ? Say, ye members 
of Christian churches who opposed this law to suppress the traffic 
in rum, is this nothing ? Will you pray that the heathen may have 
the gospel and be saved, and yet do nothing to remove the heathen- 
ism that is at your own door ? Will you give of your money to stop, 
in a distant land, the car Juggernaut because a few victims are 
crushed under its wheels, and yet sustain at home a car Jugger- 
naut that annually crushes out the everlasting hopes of thirty thous- 
and of God's intelligent creatures ? Will you weep at a recital of 
the tortures occasioned by swinging on hooks, or distorting the 
body, and yet have no sensibilities to be touched by the horrors of 
the infernal traffic that is carried on around you ? 

Listen to the words of the learned Judge Cranch. He says, "I 
know that the cup" which contains ardent spirit " is poisoned; I 
know that it may cause death; that it may cause more than death — 
that it may lead to crime, to sin, to the tortures of everlasting re- 
morse. Am I not, then, a murderer ? worse than a murderer ? as 
much worse as the soul is better than the body ? If ardent spirits 
were nothing worse than a deadly poison — if they did not excite 
and inflame all the evil passions — if they did not dim that heavenly 
light which the Almighty has implanted in our bosoms to guide us 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 25 

through the obscure passages or our pilgrimage — if they did not 
quench the Holy Spirit in our hearts, they would be comparatively 
harmless. It is their moral effect, it is the ruin of the so ill which 
they produce, that renders them so dreadful. The difference be- 
tween death by simple poison and death by habitual intoxication 
may extend to the whole difference between everlasting happiness 
and eternal death." 

The New York State Society says, at the head of which is the 
chancellor of the state, " Disguise that business as they will, it is 
still, in its true character, the business of destroying the bodies and 
souls of men. The vender and the maker of spirits, in the whole 
range of them, from the pettiest grocer to the most extensive distil- 
ler, are fairly chargeable, not only with supplying the appetite for 
spirits, but with creating that unnatural appetite ; not only with sup- 
plying the drunkard with the fuel of his vices, but with making the 
drunkard." 

XXIH. 

Number of drunkards. From estimates carefully made, it ap- 
pears that in the United States there are about 400,000 drunkards, 
who, with the moderate drinkers, annually pour down their throats 
60,000,000 gallons of ardent spirits. These are distributed through- 
out every city, town, and village in the Union. The guardians of 
the poor in Philadelphia report that the number of cases treated in 
the hospital, in the Blockley Almshouse, in 1851, was 5000. Intem- 
perate, males, 2709, women, 897 ; total, 3606, out of 5000. There 
were also of mania a potu — with slight delirium, 343 ; do. with 
hallucination, 114 ; violent mania, 157 ; total, mania a potu, 614. 

In New Hampshire there are over 2000 drunkards ; in other states 
the same proportion. Now, could we look into the 400,000 families 
with which these victims of vice are connected, what spectacles of 
sorrow, poverty, and wretchedness would be presented! Here we 
should see an aged father broken down and impoverished by the 
profligacy of a beloved son, his gray hairs brought in sorrow to the 
grave. There we should behold a widowed mother, with her heart 
lacerated with grief, her foudest hopes blasted. She has pleaded 
with her only son, prayed for him, wept over him, in tones of agony 
exhorted him to dash from his lips the fatal cup. In another group 
may be seen the wife, smitten to the ground, trampled upon, her 
tenderness met with harshness and cruelty, her kindness repaid with 
scorn and brutality. Life to her, which was once gay and bright, 
has become a wild waste, filled with dark clouds, terrible visions, 
fearful forebodings. Tears, struggles against poverty, inward and 
outward desolation, are her portion. In another miserable apart- 
ment will be found little children neglected, grossly abused, the 
victims of paroxysms of rage, and brought up to crime and infamy. 
He who was their father has become a fiend. He who should give 
them bread deals out Moavs. Their natural protector has become 
3 



26 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

their greatest enemy — become a raving tiger thirsting for their 
blood. 

In this army of drunkards are many women. "The horrible 
fact ought to strike upon us like a peal of thunder, that there are in 
this country fifty thousand women who are abandoned drunkards. 
If the intensity and the amount of the suffering caused by intem- 
perance, deepened as it is sevenfold by the knowledge that it does 
not flow from the dispensations of Providence, but from human folly 
and wickedness, were appreciated, it would be enough, as it seems, 
to awaken the indignation and enlist the energies of every generous 
man in the overthrow of an evil, which, without affording any body 
one grain of real happiness, is the cause of such accumulating, 
inexpressible miseries." 

XXIV. 

Effects on children. It is stated that of six hundred and ninety 
children prosecuted and imprisoned for crimes, more than four hun- 
dred were from intemperate families. In a single school in Phil- 
adelphia, out of ninety children, twenty-five are intemperate. " On 
being asked by their teacher how it happened, the reply was, that it 
was by their dipping their bread in whiskey in the morning. This 
burning poison is thus a part of the very subsistence of the family. 
Its use steals silently on like a gentle soporific ; and while it secures 
the powers of the man, it locks up his reason, destroys his moral 
sense, and hushes the alarms of conscience." 

While visiting the almshouse at South Boston, I entered a hall 
in which were gathered about seventy poor, sickly, emaciated chil- 
dren between three and five years of age. Some were crying, 
others were wasting away under disease, and all looked inexpress- 
ibly sad. The spectacle was indeed heart-rending. On inquiring 
where such a company came from, I was informed that they were 
the children of intemperate parents who were in the poorhouse. 
They were a part of the fruits of the liquor traffic in the city of 
Boston. 

How our public officers, whose official duty it is to inspect these 
institutions, and look from time to time upon these scenes of wretch- 
edness, can deliberately grant licenses to rum sellers to evade the 
state law which has been enacted against this accursed business, is 
a question which I shall not attempt to answer. 

XXV. 

Alcoholic drinks are never necessary. I do not speak of alcohol as 
a medicine, or of its use for mechanical purposes, but as a beverage ; 
and as such it is, under all circumstances, positively injurious. Some 
persons contend that spirits are necessary to enable a man to endure 
fatigue, the extremes of heat and cold, or exposure to severe storms. 
But we have an abundance of testimony with which to refute sucli 
an assertion. The experiment has been tried upon the West India 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 27 

slave. But " on three contiguous estates," says Dr. Abbot, " of 
more than four hundred slaves, has been made, with fine success, 
the experiment of a strict exclusion of ardent spirits at all seasons 
of the year. The success has very far exceeded the proprietor's 
most sanguine hopes. Peace, and quietness, and contentment reign 
among the negroes ; Creoles are reared in much greater numbers 
than formerly ; the estates are in the neatest and highest state of 
cultivation ; and order and discipline are maintained with very little 
correction and the mildest means." 

Sailors are another class who sometimes need ardent spirits, if 
they are ever needed, in cases of great exposure. But facts prove 
that those who drink are much more liable to perish than those who 
abstain. 

" In confirmation of this, the case of the vessel wrecked off the 
harbor of Newburyport a few years since may be adduced. On an 
intensely cold night, when all the men of that vessel were in danger 
of freezing to death, the master advised them to drink no ardent 
spirits. He told them if they did they must surely freeze. Some 
took his advice, while others, notwithstanding his most earnest en- 
treaties, disregarded it The result was, that of those who used the 
spirits, some lost their hands, some their feet, and some perished ; 
while the rest survived unhurt." 

Soldiers are even more exposed to severe extremes and vicissi- 
tudes than sailors. But Dr. Jackson, a distinguished physician in 
the British army, asserts that spirits are decidedly injurious to sol- 
diers on duty, rendering them less able to endure labor and hard- 
ship. And a general officer in the same army thus testifies : " But, 
above all, let every one who values his health avoid drinking spirits 
when heated ; that is adding fuel to the fire, and is apt to produce 
the most dangerous inflammatory complaints." " Not a more dan- 
gerous error exists, than the notion that the habitual use of spiritu- 
ous liquors prevents the effects of cold. On the contrary, the truth 
is, that those who drink most frequently of them are soonest affected 
by severe weather. The daily use of these liquors tends greatly to 
emaciate and waste the strength of the body," &c. 

XXVI. 

The custom of drinking comparatively modern. It is only within 
about three hundred years that ardent spirits have been generally 
used as a beverage. Our ancestors did not use them for more 
than a hundred years after this country was settled. 

" The art of procuring ardent spirit by distillation," says Pro- 
fessor Waterhouse, " was the discovery of the Arabian chemists, a 
century or two after the death of Mahomet, who died in 631. But 
so sensible were these Mahometans of the destructive effects of 
spirituous liquors, that the use of them was prohibited even by their 
own laws. Such, however, was their prejudice against Christianity, 
that they willingly suffer 3d this infernal and fascinating spirit to be 



28 



FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 



introduced among Christian nations. A more subtle plan, perhaps, 
could not have been devised to eradicate every religious principle 
from the human mind, and to disseminate those of an opposite 
nature. 

" A considerable time had elapsed before ardent spirits were 
manufactured in Europe ; and they were very sparingly used for 
several centuries. Then people in. general were exempted from 
raging disorders, both of body and mind. In process of time, how- 
ever, when distilled spirits were freely taken, it was observed that 
new diseases appeared, and such disorders as had been mild and 
tractable became formidable and alarming." 

XXVIL 

Pity for the victim of intemperance. This should induce all good 
citizens to rally to the support of the law. " Of all the unfortunate 
creatures in the world, if there be one who deserves especial com- 
miseration on account of his sufferings, it is the slave of intemper- 
ance. His self-respect is utterly gone ; and he hangs his head in 
shame and agony before the bar of his own conscience, and before 
the clear gaze of men, and before the haunting glance of God. A 
fiend follows him, a fearful fiend, by day and night. His nerves 
are unstrung ; his brain is on fire with delirium ; he is scared by 
unreal visions ; a worm gnaws, gnaws at his breast, with an appe- 
tite more pitiless far than that of the vulture which devoured the 
vitals of the old Titan. In his lonely hours, thinking ofttimes how 
his early dreams have all faded out, and his best hopes gone to 
ashes, he weeps tears of gall. And when he remembers what he 
was once, when the world was fair and good, and there was a 
glory in the sky, and his heart was pure and young, unacquainted 
with guilt and misery, and then bethinks him of what he is now, 
he wishes he were dead. ' O,' he cries, ' that I had but died ere 
the sweet and innocent memories of boyhood were changed for 
this vile degradation and this dread remorse ! ' And then, in the 
intolerable revulsion of self-condem nation and despair, thousands 
have rushed unbid to the tribunal of God." 

I will close this section by quoting the language of the Hon. Ed- 
ward Everett, stating what ardent spirits have done in ten years 
in the United States. He says, — 

" 1. It has cost the nation a direct expense of six hundred mil- 
lions of dollars. 2. It has cost the nation an indirect expense of 
six hundred millions of dollars. 3. It has destroyed three hundred 
thousand lives, 4. It has sent one hundred thousand children to 
the poorhouse. 5. It has consigned at least one hundred and fifty 
thousand persons to the jails and state prisons. 6. It has made at 
least one thousand maniacs. 7. It has instigated to the commission 
of fifteen hundred murders. 8. It has caused two thousand persons 
to commit suicide. 9. It has burned or otherwise destroyed prop- 
erty to the amount of ten millions of dollars. 10. It has made two 
hundred thousand widows, and one million orphan children." 



THE MASSACHUSETTS! 4.NTI-LIQU0R LAW. 29 



SECTION III. 

ARGUMENTS DRAWN FROM THE IMMORALITY OF THE MANU- 
FACTURE AND SALE OF INTOXICATING DRINKS. 

XXVIII. 

Jllcohol is a poison. Hence the manufacture and sale of it, to 
be used as a drink, should be suppressed by law. If any have 
doubts respecting the poisonous nature of alcoholic drinks, let them 
consult medical and chemical works that treat upon this point, and 
their doubts will soon be dissipated. Dr. Trall, in his prize essay 
on " the Relations of Alcohol and the human Organism," uses the 
following- language on this subject : — 

" Now, what is alcohol ? Does it grow ? Is it found a constitu- 
ent principle of any thing that has life ? Never ! Go search cre- 
ation through; examine all the structures and fluids of animated 
existence : you find it not. Look through all the vegetable king- 
dom ; analyze the alimentary grains, the nutritious seeds, the escu- 
lent roots, and the luscious fruits : it is not there. Then go down 
to the mineral regions ; search through all the strata of earth, and 
explore the depths of old ocean: it is not there. Nature, through- 
out all her domain of things animate and inanimate, has not pro- 
duced it. Whence comes it then? Human art, led on by the 
solicitation of depraved instincts, has produced it; not by any 
process of growth and development, but by a process of destruction 
and retrogradation. 

" In making alcohol, the nutrient vegetable principles undergo 
fermentation. And what is fermentation ? In plain language, it 
is simply a rotting process. The proximate organic vegetable 
principles putrefy, become decomposed, and are physiologically 
destroyed ; but being subjected to certain circumstances of air, 
temperature, and moisture, some of their ultimate elements, set free 
by the process of decomposition, recombine, in new forms, and pro- 
duce new substances, one of which is alcohol. The fermentation 
of leavened bread converts a portion of the sugar into carbonic acid 
gas, and if the fermentation is carried too far, the gluten is de- 
stroyed, and acetic acid developed ; or, as the women say, their 
bread is sour. Hence fermentation, in the best of bread, diminishes 
its nutritive qualities. If food ferments in the stomach, instead of 
digesting, various acid, acrid, and irritating compounds are formed, 
as the dyspeptic well knows, greatly to his cost ; and all fermenta- 
tion, whether panary, saccharine, vinous, acetic, or putrefactive, is 
simply the transformation of matter from its organic or proximate 
to its ultimate or elementary conditions, in different stages of the 
process of retrogradation and destruction. 

" Thus Ave see that alcohol, so far from being a product of growth 
and organic formation, is exactly the contrary — a result of decay 
3 # 



30 



FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 



and destruction ; and it has, clearly, no more place among marfs 
beverages than arsenic has among his foods. The virus of the 
rattlesnake, when taken into the human stomach, has a pleasant^ 
nervine, and exhilarating effect, and is, in fact, thus used, a less 
deadly poison than alcohol. But if this virus be inserted under 
the skin, it proves rapidly destructive. Alcohol inserted under the 
skin produces only a slight inflammation ; but if swallowed, its 
destructive influence over the whole nervous system is rapid and 
powerful. Now, one is just as veritable a poison as the other, yet 
each operates in its own peculiar way. Such is alcohol, in itself 
considered, and such the analysis of its ravages on man." 

Dr. Cox has truly said that " alcohol contains no more nourish- 
ment than a flash of lightning." 

XXIX. 

Liquors adulterated. As though alcohol were not a sufficiently 
violent and certain poison, the ingenuity of human depravity has 
devised means for the further drugging the beverages that are sold 
under the names of brandy, gin, wines, &c. We do not get even 
the alcohol pure, but this is combined with other poisons. Some of 
them are of the most pernicious character. Dr. Trall mentions the 
following as in common use : " Essential oils, cocculus Indicus, log- 
wood, Brazil wood, alum, green vitriol, oil of vitriol, capsicum, opium, 
tobacco, aloes, bitter oranges, henbane, nux vomica, sugar of lead, 
oil of bitter almonds, India berry, pokeberries, elderberries, poison 
hemlock, Guinea pepper, laurel water, prussic acid, dragon's blood, 
lamb's blood, gum benzoin, red sanders, burnt sugar, salt of tar- 
tar, and so on. Here are some of the most deadly vegetable and 
mineral agents in the world, with which nearly all the liquors, 
wines, ales, and beers in the world, and often cider, are drugged 
and adulterated. A late work on chemistry enumerates forty-six 
articles commonly used in making beer alone ; and almost every 
species of the light and sweet wines, such as ladies sometimes 
think delectable, is extensively adulterated." 

An extensive dealer in ardent spirits was conversing with a friend 
shortly before the passage of the Massachusetts anti-liquor law, and 
asked him what he could do with his large stock, should that law 
be enacted. " Why," he replied, " you can sell your liquors for 
mechanical or medicinal purposes." "But," said the dealer, " they 
are not fit for either of those purposes." They were fit to pour 
down men's throats, and curse society, and fill the community with 
pauperism, crime, and indescribable wretchedness, and yet not fit 
for mechanical purposes ! And such liquors are called " prop- 
erty"! Around such a villanous and deadly combination of vile 
and loathsome poisons, respectable men would place the "sacred 
rights of property " / At the moment that I am writing, the Mas- 
sachusetts legislature is discussing the importance of securing 
greater protection to life on our railroads, on account of the recent sad 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 31 

accident to the son of the President elect, and at the same time efforts 
are being- made to repeal a law which has been passed to protect hu- 
man life against these drugged liquors, which slay their hundreds and 
thousands ! Railroad conductors and firemen must be careful — 
no constitutional obstructions to putting them under heavy penal- 
ties ; but the fifteen hundred dealers in drugged poisons in Boston 
must not be disturbed in " their lawful business." Though they 
send scores of men reeling through the streets, to one who, by 
accident, is thrown down a railroad bank — though they fill with 
sadness and clothe with mourning a thousand families, to one that is 
bereaved by such a calamity — yet we are told they must be pro- 
tected ! They must be protected because there is a great deal of 
money invested in their trade. Yes, a great deal of money, money 
invested in essential oils, logwood, green vitriol, opium, poison hem- 
lock, prussic acid, &c, mixed up with alcohol, and therefore the 
traffic must not be disturbed ! And those who make the strongest 
speeches on the rum, or drugged liquor, side of the question, are 
sure to announce that they are " temperance men" — a fact which, in 
many cases at least, was never publicly known before ! 

XXX. 

Distillation destroys articles of food. It converts thousands of 
hogsheads of sugar and molasses, and millions of bushels of rye, 
into poison. So great has been the consumption of these articles, 
that in some places the distillery has regulated the price of bread, 
and in others, the poor have starved while the work of distillation 
was going on. The Rev. Edward Hitchcock, D. D., in an argu- 
ment addressed to distillers, says, " Do they know that fifty-six 
millions of gallons of ardent spirits are annually consumed in the 
United States, or more than four and a half gallons to each inhab- 
itant ; and that about forty-four millions of this quantity are pre- 
pared in the distilleries of our own country ; that ten millions of gal- 
lons are distilled from molasses, and more than nine million bushels 
of rye are used for this purpose ? " 

An English " publication shows that $30,000,000 worth of grain 
is destroyed every year by being manufactured into intoxicating 
liquids, and this while thousands of the peasantry have literally 
starved to death. A return of the revenue for the year 1842 shows 
that the British government derives an annual income of no less 
than $65,000,000 from the duties upon liquor. And there cannot be 
a doubt, that in the world there is directly expended for it the annual 
sum of at least $1,000,000,000 — a sum amply sufficient to relieve 
the physical wants of the destitute among all the civilized portion 
of mankind." 

XXXI. 

The dealer in ardent spirits does not return a fair equivalent for 
what he receives. He takes the products of industry, the fruits of 



32 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

toil, and justice requires that he give back a fair equivalent. If a 
person trades with a farmer, he receives for his money valuable prod- 
uce. If a mechanic is employed, he gives us a comfortable house, 
or useful furniture, or some article that will be of service. The 
physician gives us the benefit of his study and professional skill. 
But what does a man carry away from the dealer in ardent spirits ? 
That which will make him a better and happier man ? which will 
help to increase his property, his interest in his family, his affection 
for his wife and children? that which will make him a better 
citizen, or neighbor, or patriot ? I need hardly answer the question. 
For this money the man- purchases sorrow, tears, disease, poverty, 
temporal and eternal death. The seller, however, may say that he is 
not responsible for what is done with the liquor. But he knows that it 
is purchased to be drank, and he is fully aware of the effects of the 
poison. Is not the apothecary who sells arsenic or any other poison, 
knowing that the purchaser designs to take it, responsible ? Is not 
a person who sells to another a pistol, knowing that the buyer will 
sooner or later use it to blow out his brains, responsible ? If the 
rum seller knew that his liquor would not be used as a beverage, the 
case' would be different. But he knows, as he deposits the money 
in his drawer, that he has delivered to the man a deadly poison — an 
article that will tend to undermine his health, derange his reason, 
blast his soul, and turn his home into a hell. 

XXXII. 

This traffic assails the fundamental principles of society. Society 
is a compact for mutual benefit. It contemplates the securing of 
advantages by associated effort, which cannot be as well, if at all, 
obtained by individual effort ; such as self- protection, and security 
to property, the comforts and luxuries of life, and the general dif- 
fusion of happiness. Each member is expected to contribute his 
share to sustain necessary public expenses, to promote the welfare 
of the community, and to carry out the great end of the organiza- 
tion. Now, how do distillers and rum sellers act their part in 
accomplishing the purposes of this confederacy ? They promote 
them as the wild ocean storm promotes navigation ; as an exten- 
sive conflagration promotes the growth of a town or city ; as a 
volcanic eruption promotes the comfort of the villagers at the base 
of the mountain. 

General Cary, of Ohio, says, "The army of liquor makers and 
venders press forward, laying waste and destroying whatsoever 
things are honest, just, pure, excellent, lovely, and of good report. 
Their banners are rolled in blood, and the shrieks of murdered in- 
nocence is the music of their march. On every hill top and in 
every valley, monuments of human skeletons mark their desolating 
progress. Well might the great enemy of man swear by the cor- 
onet of fire, that, in the work of devastating earth, the liquor dealer 
has no rival." 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-EIQUOR LAW. 33 

XXXIII. 

This traffic violates the Christian rule of humanity. " Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself" is the law that comes to us from the 
great Teacher. But how does the liquor dealer love his neighbor ? 
When a distressed wife has gone to him to plead with him, on her 
knees, not to sell her husband another drop of rum, what treatment 
has she received ? As she has portrayed the poverty and wretch- 
edness of her children, and depicted her own agony under the bru- 
tality of a drunken husband, what impression have the appeals 
made ? I could repeat tales of horror on this subject, that would 
touch any heart that was not made of granite. We think it cruel, 
when the Hindoo widow is struggling to escape from the funeral 
pyre of her husband, to push her back into the flames, and disregard 
her shrieks. We exclaim, " O the barbarities of heathenism ! " 
Would that such a people had the gospel ! Yet here in Boston are 
wives, worse than widows, enduring the tortures of a perpetual fire, 
breathing an atmosphere impregnated with oaths and cursing, 
lying down at night upon beds of anguish, to whom no morning 
light brings peace or hope, who, when seeking relief at the feet of 
the keeper of the dram shop, are cruelly repulsed and driven back to 
their " funeral pyre." And just, too, as they are looking for hope to 
a law recently passed by the commonwealth to suppress the traffic 
in rum, a petition is placed in the Exchange in State Street, which 
I saw to-day, asking the present Legislature to repeal said law, and 
allow the tide of ruin to flow on unchecked ! Said petition is 
signed by men of " high respectability," and I observed that it was 
very appropriately placed between two other kindred documents. 
One was a petition to allow the mail to run on the Sabbath, and the 
other a subscription paper to build a theatre and opera, both of which 
have numerous signatures. Should the petition for the repeal of the 
law be successful, I have no doubt but that it will be easy to ac- 
complish the other two objects — break the Sabbath and build the 
theatre — besides perpetuating the misery of wives and children. 

XXXIV. 

The sale and use of intoxicating drinks violate the precepts of the 
Bible. I will quote some of them : " Woe unto him that giveth his 
neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him 
drunken also, that thou maystlook on their nakedness." (Hab. ii. 15.) 

" Who hath woe ? who hath sorrow ? who hath contentions ? who 
hath babbling ? who hath wounds without cause ? who hath redness 
of eyes ? They that tarry long at the wine ; they that go to seek 
mixed wine." 

" Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its 
color in the cup. At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth 
like an adder." (Prov. xxiii. 29-32.) 

" Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning that they may 



34 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame 
them." (Is. v. 11.) 

" Wine is a mocker, strong- drink is raging ; and whosoever is 
deceived thereby is not wise." (Prov. xx. 1.) 

The uniform testimony of the Bible and the spirit of Christianity 
is most decidedly against this evil. And yet, on Monday, January 
17, the following order was presented in the Massachusetts House 
of Representatives : — 

" Ordered, That the committee on the judiciary be instructed to 
inquire into the expediency of repealing ' An Act concerning the 
Manufacture and Sale of Spirituous or Intoxicating Liquors,' passed 
May 22, 1852, and contained in the supplement to the Revised 
Statutes, chapter 322 ; as arbitrary and vindictive in its character, re- 
pugnant to the genius of our republican institutions, inconsistent with 
the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity, and in conflict with the 
Constitution both of the United States and of this Commonwealth." 

" Inconsistent with the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity ! ! " 
It almost takes away my breath to think of the use of such language 
in such a connection. A law to suppress such evils as we have 
been considering inconsistent with the mild spirit of Christianity ! 

XXXV. 

The traffic dishonors God. " Whether ye eat or drink, or what- 
soever ye do, do all to the glory of God." What distiller or rum 
seller prays before his family in the morning for the divine blessing 
to rest upon the business of the day ? Who opens his dram shop 
and pours out his drugged liquors for " the glory of God" ? Who, 
at the close of life, and in his dying hours, renders thanks to his 
heavenly Father for having been permitted to add, in so large a 
measure, to the pauperism, crime, and wretchedness of the commu- 
nity ? for having been the instrument of converting so many reason- 
able beings into maniacs, and securing to so many children diseased 
bodies and idiotic minds ? Yet the command is clear and impera- 
tive, " Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 

The simple truth is, that there is not a single feature of this busi- 
ness that approximates towards fulfilling this requisition. On the 
other hand, it violates, in all its' aspects, this great command. It 
dishonors God. It practically disregards his government and de- 
fies his authority. It scorns the terrible threatenings that he has 
uttered against transgressors. 

For the Almighty Being, besides making known his will in the 
Scriptures, has written upon the drunkard's career, in letters of fire, 
his intense abhorrence of this evil. Every appalling consequence 
of intoxication is a chapter in the book of revelation, which the 
inebriate is forced to open and read. And these consequences are 
before the dealer, and he cannot fail to perceive their import. If 
the 1500 grog shops in Boston were converted into idol temples, 
would not the keepers be guilty of dishonoring God by thus promot- 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 35 

ing idolatry and destroying the souls of men ? But they might say, 
We do not compel men, as they pass by, to enter our temples and 
worship idols, and therefore are not responsible. I would say, Nei- 
ther do the inhabitants of India compel men to throw themselves 
under the wheels of Juggernaut. But they roll forward the mon- 
strous car, knoxuing that human beings will be crushed, and the 
dealer sells his rum, knowing that God will be dishonored — that 
his name will be blasphemed, his laws broken, his Sabbath violated, 
his gospel despised. He establishes a system of heathenism in a 
Christian city. His devotees bring their offerings to their temples, 
and then prostrate themselves in the streets, and in the gutters. 
Their groans mingle with the sound of church bells, and their curses 
with Christian prayers. 

XXXVI. 

This business is an offence to the virtuous portion of the community. 
It is regarded by every well-informed and humane person with in- 
dignation and disgust. The combination formed against it, under 
the temperance banner, comprises men of the highest distinction and 
station, able statesmen, profound judges, ministers, lawyers, physi- 
cians, poets, orators, merchants, and mechanics ; — the noblest wo- 
men in the land, the youth in our colleges and schools, are enrolled in 
the great army. They see the evils produced by the terrible foe of 
God and man. They hear the shrieks of the terrified, the groans 
of the dying, and they have enlisted in the holy cause of tem- 
perance, with the hope of staying the ravages of the evil, and sav- 
ing some at least from destruction. And every glass of spirit that 
is sold obstructs their reform, and perpetuates the horrible evil which 
they are striving to remove. 

XXXVII. 

The evil effect of the traffic is regular and certain. The Rev. 
Albert Barnes, one of the most distinguished and useful of 
American divines, says, in speaking of the effect of the manufac- 
ture and traffic, — 

" It is not casual, incidental, irregular. It is uniform, certain, 
deadly, as the sirocco of the desert, or as the malaria of the Pontine 
marshes. It is not a periodical influence, returning at distant inter- 
vals ; but it is a pestilence, breathing always — diffusing the poison 
when men sleep and when they wake, by day and by night, in seed 
time and harvest — attending the manufacture and sale of the article 
always. The destroyer seeks his victim alike in every hogshead 
and in every glass. He exempts no man from danger that uses it ; 
and is always secure of prostrating the most vigorous frame, of 
clouding the most splendid intellect, of benumbing the most delicate 
moral feelings, of palsying the most eloquent tongue, of teaching 
those on whose lips listening senates hung to mutter and babble 
with the drunkard, and of entombing the most brilliant talents and 



36 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

hopes of youth, wherever man can be induced to drink. The estab- 
lishment of every distillery, and every dram shop, and every grocery 
where it is sold, secures the certainty that many a man will thereby 
become a drunkard, and be a curse to himself and to the world." 



SECTION IV. 

THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF THE MAINE AND MASSACHUSETTS 
LAWS WHERE THEY HAVE BEEN ENFORCED. 

XXXVIII. 

Portland. To the Hon. Neal Dow belongs the high honor of 
having secured the enactment of the Maine Law. May the richest 
of heaven's blessings rest upon him ! May he live to see the prin- 
ciples of the Maine Law adopted by every state in our Union. 

The statistical information in regard to the operation of the law 
in Maine has been so widely diffused through the community that I 
shall give but brief extracts from the reports which have been pub- 
lished on the subject Mr. Dow, in his report to the board of alder- 
men, &c, while mayor of Portland, dated January 15, 1852, says, — 

" The salutary effects of this law are more immediately seen in all 
those departments of our affairs which fall under the care of the 
police ; and the returns of commitments to the watchhouse and 
house of correction will show something of the difference in this 
department between the present and past years. Number commit- 
ted to the house of correction for drunkenness, from June 1 to De- 
cember 1, 1850, six months, was 40. Number committed from 
January 1 to May 31, 1851, five months, was 34 ; from June 1 (the 
law was approved June 2) to October 16, was 8 ; from October 16 to 
December 31, none ; from June 1 to December 31, seven months, 8. 
QC^THE HOUSE OF CORRECTION IS NOW EMPTY ! 

" The number of commitments to the jail of this county for drunk- 
enness, assault, and larceny, from June 1 to December 31, 1850, 
was 192 ; for the same months of 1851, the number was 89, and for 
these months of 1851 there were 58 liquor sellers imprisoned, while 
in 1850 there were none. The law was in operation here pretty 
well by the 1st of August, 1851, and from that time to December 
31st there were nine commitments for larceny, and for the corre- 
sponding months of 1850 there were 16 commitments for that 
offence." 

Mr. Hadley, city missionary, says that his intercourse is chiefly 
with the poorest part of the population, who are out of the alms- 
house, and especially with the intemperate. For the quarter just 
ended, compared with the corresponding period ending December 
31, 1850, the calls made upon him for assistance have been less than 
one seventh, and the cases where relief was actually afforded were 
just one sixth as many as they were during the same months of 1850, 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 37 

and the amount given in the three months of 1851 was $1 to $5.37<| 
given in the corresponding period of 1850. These results he obtains 
from a careful examination of his books, and attributes the differ- 
ence entirely to the favorable operation of this law upon the habits 
and domestic economy of the people. 

XXXIX. 

Bangor. Rev. Mr. Weaver, of Bangor, stated at the convention 
in Augusta, the operation of the Maine Temperance Law in that 
city. A report was made to the citizens the first of last November 
showing the operations of the law during the months of July, Au- 
gust, and September, 1851, as compared with the corresponding 
months of 1850. It shows the following facts : " During the quar- 
ter ending September 30, before the enactment of the law, there 
were in Bangor 19 commitments to the county jail for breaches of 
the peace ; quarter ending September 30, 1851, 8, — showing a 
gain of 11. The cost of commitments to the city watchhouse in 
the quarter last preceding the law, was $258.80 ; of the last quarter, 
$75 ; showing a gain, in a single and very orderly city, of $183. 
There was a reduction of more than 50 per cent, in the out door ex- 
penses of the pauper establishment ; 97 per cent, in the expenses 
of almshouses, resulting from intemperance ; of 72 per cent, in the 
cost of the support of common drunkards in the house of correc- 
tion. During the quarter under consideration, 4000 gallons of liquor 
were seized and destroyed, and a still larger amount kept from 
landing, and sent back to Boston for fear of destruction. In Decem- 
ber, 1850, there were 40 commitments to the watchhouse ; Decem- 
ber, 1851, 14 only. 

" Before this law went into operation, there were 1 06 sellers in 
Bangor. Now not one sells openly. It is sold covertly, probably, 
in some of the taverns. The most of places where it is sold are 
low Irish dens — private houses. Formerly we used to see men 
drunk and fighting every day in the streets. Now Ave see none of 
it. Men of business and influence there, never before identified 
with the temperance cause, come out in favor of this law. They 
see their property and their sons and daughters are in danger from 
the traffic. This is the visible, external aspect of the cause. If we 
look into the dwellings of the victims of the vice of intemperance, 
we see broken hearts bound up, the abodes of wretchedness and 
want transformed into dwellings of peace and plenty, and children, 
before deprived of the privileges of our public schools, and the 
sanctuary on the Sabbath, now enjoying them." 

From every part of the state we receive the most cheering ac- 
counts of the operations of the law. 

XL. 

Force of the law. It is the united testimony of all persons who 
have published their opinions on the subject, that the force of this 
4 



38 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

law lies in its provision to destroy the article that produces the mis- 
chief. From among many witnesses I select the following : — 

M. Davis, Esq., of Belfast, says, "Better have no law at all, at 
present, unless you can get one making spirituous liquors contra- 
band, and exposing them to destruction. All laws without this will 
jnly fail. No law against the sale merely, however stringent, can 
be effectual. Our laAv of 1846 was every thing that such a law 
could be. As prosecuting attorney for a county league, I carried 
through some 300 prosecutions under it. This checked the business, 
and in a few towns broke it up. But in large places it produced no 
effect, and was finally dropped. And I am fully convinced, from 
six years of unceasing effort in this business, that the only way to 
stop the traffic in spirituous liquors is to make them contraband, 
and give the right to search and destroy them where found." 

XLI. 

Effects in Massachusetts. Salem. Wherever in our own state 
the law has been executed, the most immediate and beneficial re- 
sults have followed. Several hundred grog shops have been closed, 
crime and pauperism have been reduced, inebriates have been 
reformed, and comfort has been the portion of families heretofore 
made wretched by this vice. 

The following statement in regard to Salem I take from the Bos- 
ton Traveller, a paper which has nobly and fearlessly advocated 
the Maine Law : — 

" The Liquor Laiv in Salem. The city marshal, in a recent 
report to the mayor, states that from the 22d of May to the 22d of 
June there were seventy-eight arrests and commitments in Salem 
for drunkenness, and for crimes of which rum was directly or in- 
directly the cause ; from the 22d of June to the 22d of July there 
were seventy-two commitments ; from 22d of July to 22d of Au- 
gust, twelve ; and from the 22d of August to the 22d of September 
there were twenty-three ; an aggregate of commitments for the 
first two months of one hundred and fifty, and for the last two 
months of thirty-five ; making a difference of one hundred and fifteen. 

"The marshal also states that there is a decided improvement 
in the moral condition of the poorer class of the community, as the 
reduced number in the almshouse would indicate. There are 
fewer persons in the Salem almshouse now than there have been 
for eight or ten years past — fewer by a considerable number. The 
marshal also states that the police have less frequent calls now to 
quell drunken quarrels and family broils than they had before the 
new law went into operation." 

XLII. 

Springfield. The State Temperance Committee, in an address 
just published, give the following testimony in regard to Spring- 
field:— 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 



39 



" The judge of the police court of Springfield informed one of 
the committee, about six weeks ago, that his books showed a 
most astonishing diminution of intemperance and crime since the 
law passed. He remarked that, were it not for the prosecutions of 
rum sellers, he should have comparatively nothing to do. Arrests 
for drunkenness had diminished more than seventy-five per cent. 
Disturbances at night, formerly common, were now of rare occur- 
rence. The strongest opponents of the law had become its warmest 
friends. No difficulty had been experienced in enforcing the law. 
A large number of seizures had been made, and the liquor destroyed 
1 without any disturbance.' .... Judge Morton has promised 
some valuable statistics to illustrate these statements, but they 
could not be prepared in time for publication in this document. 
He states, also, that there has been a remarkable diminution in the 
number of inmates in the house of correction in that city." 

XLIII. 

Lowell. We have the most cheering intelligence from this city. 
The Hon. Elisha Huntington, late mayor of Lowell, and now 
the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, in a letter to the Rev. 
Edward Otheman, dated September 25, 1852, makes the follow- 
ing statements : — 

" In comparing the amount of intemperance for those two months 
with an equal term of time before the law went into operation, I 
consider it the fairest to take the corresponding months of last year. 
For a month or two previous to July 22, there was, perhaps, more 
than the usual quota of drinking, in anticipation of the supply being 
cut off. Every case of drunkenness observed by a watchman or 
any member of the police is reported at the police office, whether 
a prosecution is instituted or not. 



For the two months ending Sept. 
22, 1851, there were commit- 
ted to the watchhouse, 110 

Reported as being seen 
drunk, not arrested, 255 



Two months ending Sept. 22, 
1852, committed to the watch- 
house, 41 

Reported as being drunk, 
but not arrested, 66 



Total, 365 Total, 107 

" These statistics are taken from the records of the city marshal. 
The testimony of the watchmen and other police officers is uni- 
form, that there is much less disturbance and rowdyism than under 
the old regime. It is the testimony too of the grocers, that their 
customers, of a large class, pay better than formerly. Previous to 
the law's taking effect, in behalf of the executive branch of the 
municipal government, I addressed a communication to the citizens, 
calling upon them to observe the law, and declaring the determi- 
nation of those intrusted with its execution to enforce it faithfully 
and impartially. At that time there were two hundred and twenty- 



40 



FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 



seven shops and places in which intoxicating liquor was sold. 
Whatever has been sold since, has been sold secretly and clandes- 
tinely. There is no place where it is sold publicly or openly. The 
largest restorators were closed up. . . . 

" Our city marshal, Mr. Edwin L. Shedo, who is especially 
charged with the enforcement of the law, is deserving great credit 
for the prompt and faithful manner. in which he has performed his" 
duty. He has been vigilant and prompt, and I am most happy to 
say that all our police officers have acquitted themselves to my 
satisfaction, and I believe to the public generally. I have endeav- 
ored to present to you a truthful statement of affairs here. There 
is good room for improvement, but I thank God we have made 
some inroads upon the monster evil, and have dried up some of the 
fountains from which flow streams that desolate the fair face of 
society." 

Lowell Police Report. 



For three months, ending Octo- 
ber 22, 1851, committed to the 
watchhouse for drunkenness, 
160 

Reported seen drunk, not 
arrested, 390 

Total, 550 



For three months, to October 
22, 152, committed to the 
watchhouse for drunken- 
ness, 70 

Reported seen drunk, not 
arrested, 110 

Total, 180 



Warrants returned to the police court during the same time 

in 1851, 248 

Warrants returned, (including 33 search warrants,) 1852, 186 

The Lowell city marshal remarks, " The amount of drunken- 
ness for the month ending October 22 is sixty-seven per cent, less 
than during the same time last year ; and the criminal business of 
the police court has been reduced twenty-five per cent., (including 
liquor cases ;) and excluding these, thirty-eight per cent." 

The minister at large in Lowell states that at his office, " during 
the same months, the calls have been, this year, one third less, and 
fewer of the most miserable class. I have made the most particu- 
lar inquiries in the neighborhood where there has been most tip- 
pling, whether there is much difference, and the answer is, ' O, yes, 
very great ! One can sleep at night. There is more peace and 
comfort.' ... It is certain that truancy has diminished two thirds 
in our streets, which is partly owing to the law against it, and 
the house of reformation, but can also be traced directly to the 
absence of rum in the family. Debts are better paid, and rents, and 
store bills. . . . The good effects of the law are felt through all 
the business of the city except one. . . . Such is the operation 
of the law, where there is an attempt to carry it out ; an attempt 
proved to be practicable to a great extent, though the unworthy 
example of Boston is on one side, and New Hampshire, without a 
Maine law, on the other." 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW 41 



XLIV. 

Reports from various towns. The State Committee publish in 
"The Life Boat" of January 26, 1853, a few specimens of the 
reports received from their correspondents, purposely selected from 
different portions of the state : — 

Chicopee. " The results of the enforcement of the law have 
been highly beneficial in our town. . . . There is less rowdy- 
ism ; the lovers of rum, and those Avho are ready to ' keep toll gate 
on the road to hell' for the sake of the profits, have raved furiously 
against the law." 

Ware. " The law has apparently been popular with us, and no 
desire is expressed for its repeal. . . . We see great good in 
the working of the law, inasmuch as no open places of sale are now 
known. We have much less noise in our streets, and cases of 
intoxication are rare ; and when one occurs it attracts attention at 
once." 

Framingham. " We prosecute all violations, and are now begin- 
ning' to see the fruit of our labors ; that is, quietness and peace. We 
think that the law has gained many friends." 

Randolph. " There were six shops in operation before the law 
went into effect, which they closed promptly and quietly. They are 
watched closely, and Ave believe they do not sell any. A great deal 
of good has been done. The friends of order see, feel, and appre- 
ciate the good effects of the law." 

Concord. " Before the law went into effect our two hotels and 
one restorator were openly and largely engaged in the traffic. The 
keepers at once suspended the sale, and have not, to our knowledge, 
sold since, with one exception, (which was prosecuted.) We think 
it is only necessary to show a firm, uncompromising determination 
to do our duty, particularly in the small towns, in order to suppress 
the traffic. The results here have been more than equal to our just 
expectations." 

Canton. " The beneficial results of the law have exceeded our 
expectations. The law has closed three quarters of the rum shops 
in this region. Crime, quarrels, and drunkenness have greatly 
diminished. The report of the grand jury of Norfolk county, at 
its last session, will prove this. One great benefit the law has ac- 
complished is this, it has driven the rum traffic into secret places. 
The fact that it cannot be found now without seeking, will prevent 
the fall of many young men." 

S. Deerjield. " The beneficial results of the law have exceeded 
our expectations. As far as we can judge, the law has gained 
public favor since its enactment." 
4 # 



42 



FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 



XLV. 



Rhode Island, Statement of the Mayor of Providence. The fol- 
lowing- statement of the Mayor of Providence tells its own story. 
We take it from the Temperance Advocate : — 

Mayor's Office, Providence, Nov. 4, 1852. 
To oblige a large number of citizens, who have made inquiry 
touching- these matters, I present the following statistics : — 

Committals to the watchhouse for drunkenness, and small 
assaults growing out of drunkenness, from July ]9 to 
October 19, 1852, (the first three months under the new 
liquor law,) 177 

Do. do. do., for corresponding months of last year, - - 282 

Do. do. do., for one month immediately preceding the operation 

of the new law, - - 153 

Committals to the county jail from July 19 to October 19, 1852, 
(the first three months under the new liquor law,) for state 
offences, - - -- - - - - - 77 

For city offences, - - - - - - - 23 



Do. do. do., for the corresponding months of last year, for state 

offences, - - - - - - - - -HO 

For city offences, ---------51 

161 

Do. do. do., for one month preceding the operation of the new 

law, for state offences, ------ 40 

For city offences, ---------32 

72 

From these statistics it will be seen, that the committals to the 
watchhouse and county jail, for the first three months under the 
new liquor law, are one third less than during the corresponding 
months of last year ; and the average monthly committals for these 
three months are about sixty per cent, less than for the months im- 
mediately preceding. 

On the first day of this month, there were but one hundred and 
fourteen paupers in the Dexter Asylum ; being the smallest number 
of inmates, at this season of the year, since 1845. The number of 
inmates on the 1st of November, last year, was one hundred and 
forty-six, and that is precisely the average number, at that date, for 
the past six years. 

The number of insane paupers, supported at the Butler Hospital, 
has also been considerably reduced. I have not at this moment the 
papei'S at hand from which to give the exact statistics, but I can 
safely say, that the number is about one fifth less, (the present num- 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 43 

ber being forty-four,) and the cost of their support the last quarter 
was three hundred dollars less than the average for each of the pre- 
ceding quarters. It is true that several were transferred from the 
hospital to the asylum, in the month of June last ; but had not that 
transfer been made, the present number at the asylum would have 
been so many less, and the contrast between this and former years 

so much the greater. . ^ t, « 

to A. C. Barstow, Mayor. 

SECTION V. 

GENERAL ARGUMENTS AND CONSIDERATIONS. 
XL VI. 

Temperance and religion. One of the marked and uniform ben- 
efits of the temperance reformation is its influence upon the con- 
version of souls and upon Sabbath schools. Wherever the Maine 
law has been faithfully executed, or a community has, in any other 
way, got rid of the evils of intemperance, the attendance upon 
churches and Sabbath "schools has greatly improved, and many of 
the reformed have become Christians. It is stated that of thirty- 
five thousand reformed drunkards in England, nearly six thousand 
have become members of Christian churches. In our own country, 
in seasons of revivals, nearly all the converts have, in some in- 
stances, been persons of strictly temperate habits. Those who are 
addicted to intemperance cannot be reached by motives drawn from 
the gospel. A distinguished American divine says, " Members of 
the church of God mout pure, bear it in mind, that intemperance in 
our land, and the world over, stands in the way of the gospel. It 
opposes the progress of the reign of Christ in every village and 
hamlet, in every city, and at every corner of the street. It stands 
in the way of revivals of religion, and of the glories of the millen- 
nial mom. Every drunkard opposes the millennium : every dram 
drinker stands in the way of it; every dram seller stands in the 
way of it. Let the sentiment be heard, and echoed, and reechoed, 
all along the hills, and vales, and streams of the land, thai the con- 
version of a man who habitually uses ardent spirits is all but hope- 
less. And let this sentiment be followed up with that other mel- 
ancholy truth, that the money wasted in this business — now a 
curse to all nations — nay, the money wasted in one year in this 
land for it would place a Bible in every family on the earth, and 
establish a school in every village ; and that the talent which in- 
temperance consigns each year to infamy and eternal perdition 
would be sufficient to bear the gospel over sea and land — to polar 
snows, and to the sands of a burning sun." 

Can we wonder that the gospel makes such slow progress, while 
the evils of intemperance rage so extensively around us ? Minis- 
ters may preach, the people of God may pray, Christian associations 



44 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

and unions may be formed, charitable societies may be organized 
and may be conducted with great efficiency, and yet how little, com- 
paratively, is accomplished in staying the progress of irreligion and 
vice ! and how unequal is the contest, while we have this giant evil 
to contend against ! How hopeless the endeavor to bring the 
whole community under the influence of God's truth! And yet 
there are many persons who declare that the pulpit has nothing to 
do with this evil. If a minister has the presumption to bring gos- 
pel truth to bear against this specific evil, he is denounced as a 
fanatic. The cry is at once raised, " Politics and the pulpit ! " 
Indeed, it has become quite fashionable, when a political party 
takes any of our great sins under its wing for protection, to issue 
its denunciation against all religious teachers who may presume to 
disturb the union which has been formed. During the Mexican 
war, a peace sermon was denounced as a political harangue, and all 
who did not glory in human slaughter were regarded as giving " aid 
and comfort to the enemy." Now all the pulpits in the lrnd might 
preach on peace, and no political party would be disturbed, no 
editor would be thrown into convulsions. So, recently, when the 
fugitive slave law was carried into execution, those who manifested 
any humanity for the fugitive, or who protested against the wrong 
of civilized, enlightened men being engaged in such business, were 
accused of dragging politics into the pulpit. And now, forsooth, 
temperance has become " a political question," with which the 
pu'pit has nothing to do ! Pray let me ask, if this system of pro- 
scription goes on, what will be left in a few years for ministers to 
preach about? Why, says one, "Confine yourselves, gentlemen, 
to the antediluvians and the scribes and Pharisees. Their sins 
and hypocrisy afford an ample field for the display of pulpit elo- 
quence and theological learning. Be prudent, and do not meddle 
with the sins of the day ; for if you do, you will be liable to ' drag 
politics into the pulpit.' " No doubt of that ! But let me ask, what 
progress would Christianity make if such advice was followed ? 
What would be accomplished, if all the arrows of divine truth 
passed over the heads of living generations, and expended their 
force upon those which had been dead thousands of years ? Just 
as much as would be effected by an army under Napoleon, which, 
instead of attacking a living city, should plant its cannon and bat- 
teries around the ruins of some ancient city — for instance, Nineveh. 
Imagine the brave soldiers drawn up in battle array, and opening 
their fire upon such a foe ! It is true that the shot might crack 
some old marble slab, or strike down some broken column, or dis- 
turb the dust which had been accumulating for ages ; but what 
would the world say at such a display of military renown ? How 
rapidly would the French empire extend under such conquests ! 

And how soon, we would ask, will " the kingdoms of the earth 
become the kingdoms of our Lord," if no effort is made to remove 
those wide-spread vices and systems of iniquity which at the present 
day afflict and curse society ? 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-L1QU0K LAW. 45 



XL VII. 

Influence on foreigners. " We invite the foreigner to our shores. 
The genius of American liberty utters the language of persuasion 
in the ears of the oppressed, and the poor, and the suffering of all 
nations. And what is the reception which we give them ? We 
darken the atmosphere which they deemed the pure air of freedom 
with the volumes of smoke from our distilleries ; we establish all 
along our wharves, and in all points of our cities, dram shops of all 
grades and orders ; and we license them by the law of the land, 
and by public opinion, and commit them often — alas, very, very 
often — to worthless men, who will wrest the last cent from the 
seaman and the foreigner ; men without principle, without morals, 
and whose only aim is to make the foreigner penniless and drunk ; 
left to curse his own folly, and his landlord, and the boasted asylum 
of liberty. We invite him at every corner of the streets to become 
a drunkard ; and then, forsooth, we complain, in the accents of 
most virtuous remonstrance, that Ireland, and England, and the 
world pour their refuse population on our shores, and seek to de- 
stroy the purity of our morals, and the holiness of our liberty." 

XL VIII. 

Reasons for enforcing the law in Massachusetts. There are 
special reasons why this beneficent enactment should be cordially 
sustained and thoroughly enforced in this commonwealth. For 
this state, from its origin, has been distinguished for its zeal and 
success in carrying forward every philanthropic and Christian en- 
terprise. Here the first efficient movement in the cause of temper- 
ance was made. This state was the first to establish the free 
school system, the glory of New England. Here the first college 
in America was erected — the first home missionary society was 
organized — the first foreign missionary society was projected. 

The blessed influences of our Protestant faith — freedom, educa- 
tion, philanthropy — are felt in all lands and in all climes. They reach 
the refined courts of Europe, the cities of China, the coasts of Africa, 
the islands of the sea, And shall Massachusetts now falter in her 
duty, and refuse to crush the monster vice that has so long preyed 
upon her life, and spread desolation and wretchedness among so 
many of her inhabitants ? Shall we present to the world the hu- 
miliating spectacle of executing with alacrity and energy a law 
recently enacted by Congress, which violates every principle of jus- 
tice and sentiment of humanity — a law which requires each citizen 
to lay violent hands upon a panting fugitive, and hurl him back to 
the dark prison house from which he has escaped, and yet refuse to 
execute a law that is full of blessings ? that comes to give comfort 
to the afflicted, hope to the despairing, and joy to ten thousand 
hearts ? If we allow this law to fail of accomplishing its noble 
ends, we shall stand, at the tribunal of the civilized world, as false 



46 FIFTY ARGUMENTS FOR 

to our duty, recreant to the principles and memory of our ances- 
tors, treacherous to humanity and to God. 

XLIX. 

Influence on other states. On this point I may be allowed to use 
language which I employed on a former occasion. 

Thousands and tens of thousands throughout the country are look- 
ing at this moment with intense interest upon Massachusetts. The 
question all over the land is, Will the law be sustained and executed ? 
Is there moral power enough in the Old Bay State to enforce this 
noble statute ? 

Already have Rhode Island and Minnesota, with us, followed the 
glorious example of the Maine state ; and let us present a united 
phalanx in the cause, and the demon Alcohol must fall in every 
state in our Union. The death knell of the monster is sounded. 
Victories achieved in this contest in Boston, Salem, Newburyport, 
and other cities, will be to the temperance reformation what the 
battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill were to the Ameri- 
can revolution. They Avill arouse the friends of temperance in 
every state in the Union. The news will cheer the faint hearted, 
strengthen the weak, fill with zeal thousands of hearts, kindle a 
fire that shall continue to burn until the last remnant of intemper- 
ance shall be consumed. 

When the Declaration of Independence was announced, a thrill 
of joy went through the land. But every patriot felt that the great 
struggle for freedom was yet to come : that a nation would not be 
born, that a republic would not be established, unless every man 
was ready to do his duty. We have gained our law, and it has been 
hailed with joy by the friends of virtue, of humanity, of God. But 
the work of its thorough execution remains to be achieved. Men 
of Massachusetts, descendants of the pilgrims, are you ready to 
pledge your lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, that, God helping you, 
you will execute this law ? The question is a solemn one. It in- 
volves interests vast as eternity. The battle is one for principle, 
for humanity, for God. Let us be united, firm, resolute, and the 
victory is ours.- The lightning will carry the tidings over the 
Union, that Massachusetts is free. The shouts of an emancipated 
state will go up to heaven. The benediction of aged fathers, ana 
the blessing of mothers, wives, and children, will rest upon you. 
You will aid in stamping upon this age a reform, the blessings of 
which will flow down the stream of time and roll over eternity. 



Repeal. What means the cry, Repeal ? Does Massachusetts go 
backward in her philanthropy ? Does she legislate civilization 
backward toward barbarism ? Shall she decree that the twelve 
hundred grog shops that have been closed in the state shall be 
again opened, and the streams which have been checked receive a 



THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-LIQUOR LAW. 47 

fresh impulse, and be permitted to flow on again in their desolating 
course ? Shall we send back temptation to the young, from whose 
path, in many places, it has been removed ? Shall we send back 
to hundreds of families the woe, agony, tears, and curses from which 
they have so recently been delivered? Who will take the respon- 
sibility of perpetrating such a wickedness ? Who, for office, for 
political capital, or for pecuniary gain, is willing to sacrifice the in- 
terests of humanity, and blast the hopes of thousands of families 
throughout this commonwealth ? Is it not fair to ask that the law be 
tried in those cities that suffer the most from intemperance, before 
the attempt is made to modify or repeal it? We have seen that, 
wherever the Maine law has been enforced, it has proved an effectu- 
al remedy for the evils of the rum traffic. It has at once secured 
good order, reduced the expenses of pauperism and crime, restored 
inebriates to sobriety, and in a thousand ways benefited the com- 
munity. So fully did the people of the state of Maine appreciate 
the benefits jof this law, that they nobly sustained it at their last 
election by a majority of 35,535. And shall Massachusetts be 
behind the state of Maine in this humane and Christian enterprise ? 
Shall we disappoint the friends of humanity in New York, Penn- 
sylvania, Ohio, and in other states, who are moving in this work ? 
Let the friends of the law be vigilant, be firm, be united ! Let 
them not be insnared by the artful devices of the enemy ! Let 
them not be decoyed into the adoption of measures which, under 
the title of " modification," will take the vitality out of this law and 
]eave it a dead letter. Let this law be cordially sustained and rig- 
orously enforced, and it will be " as a voice crying in the wilder- 
ness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord." It will be the harbinger 
of the fulfilment of the promise, " For ye shall go out with joy, and 
be led forth with peace: the mountains and the h: -Is shall break 
forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall 
clap their har.ds." 



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DR. CHARLES JEWETT'S SPEECHES, LECTURES, POEMS, 
AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS on the Temperance Question, comprised in 
1 vol. 12mo., with a beautiful Steel Portrait of this indefatigable laborer in the cause. 
Every friend of temperance should own this work. The copyright is owned by the 
Dr., and the profits of sales are his. 

DR. BEECHERS SIX SERMONS ON INTEMPERANCE, 

as recently published in the first vol. of the Dr.'s complete works. These six discourses 
have been among the most efficient instrumentalities in urging forward the glorious 
temperance reform. 

The third vol. of the venerable Dr.'s works is just published, containing a beautiful 
Steal Portrait of this distinguished divine. 



A portion of the following New Books we have just published. Those 
marked with a * will be issued in a few weeks. February 1st. 1853. 

*A KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. By Mrs. H. B. Stowe. 
Price 38 cts. 

* UNCLE TOM'S CABIN IN GERMAN. Price 50 cts. 

* MUNTER'S CONVERSATIONS WITH COUNT STRUENZA. 
I vol. 12mo. From the German. Price $1. 

* VOICES EROM THE SILENT LAND; OR, LEAVES OE 
CONSOLATION FOR THE AFFLICTED. 1 vol. l^no. Compiled by a lady. Price $1. 

THE TRIAL BY JURY. By Lysander Spooner. 1 vol. 8vo. 

Price, paper, $1 ; cloth, $1.25 ; law sheep, $1.50. 

AUTOGRAPHS OF FREEDOM. 1 vol. 12mo. Illustrated. 
Price 75 cts. 

THE MINISTRY OF TAUNTON, MASS. By Rev. S. Hopkins 

Emery. 2 vols. 12mo. Price $2. 

*THE WRITINGS OF PROF. B. B. EDWARDS. With a 
Memoir, by Prof. Park. 2 vols. 12mo. Price $2.50. 

THE LIFE OF CHRIST, AND OTHER POEMS. By Mrs. 

Adaliza Cutter Phelps. 1 vol. 18mo. Price, cloth, $1 ; full gilt, $1.50. 

THE BOOK OF ONE THOUSAND ANECDOTES, Humorous, 
Grave, and Witty. By M. Lafayette Byrn, M. D. 1 vol. 12mo. Price $1. 

*THE SHADY SIDE; or, Life in a Country Parsonage. By a 
Pastor's Wife. 1 vol. 18mo. Price 75 cts. 

PHILOSOPHY OF MYSTERIOUS AGENTS. In Three Numbers. 

By Dr. E. C. Rogers. Price per No. 25 cts. 

* THE FAMILY COUNSELLOR ; or, Hope of the Household 

By Rev. Wm. M. Thayer. Price $1. 



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